The New Age
by cgal120
Summary: Forty years ago an accident created a new race of creatures; bloodthirsty beings known as the Lost that infected the planet and almost wiped out the human race. I've been growing up in the aftermath. Now my father has gone missing, we're stuck with Rebels and our home is under attack. We have to run and fast, but there's no telling what lies beyond the Safe Zone. Nyotalia. FP-POV
1. Chapter 1

**The New Age**

**Chapter One**

Blinking awake, I felt something gripping my shoulder tightly. My stomach churned suddenly at the feeling, my eyes not yet adjusted to the dull light that was filtering into my bedroom from the gap in the middle of my dirty curtains. Turning over quickly and looking up, I caught sight of the lined face of my father as he smiled at me. I relaxed.

"Mornin', Sunshine," he said, sitting down on my mattress. I stretched slightly and sat up, scratching my fingers through my dull blonde hair.

"Mornin' yourself," I replied, yawning hard. I hated being woken like that and he knew it. Dad chuckled and ruffled my hair. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I've got a job today," he said, tilting his head at my confused expression. "I told you the other day, remember? Louis and I have to help the Rebels get a cargo of fruits into the Area so we'll be gone all day – Francis is coming over to watch over you."

"Oh yeah…" I muttered. "I forgot about that…"

"I know you hate it when I go but I have to if I'm to keep you and Matthew safe," Dad said, kissing my head. "You only have a month's worth of… _supplies_ left and the ration line opens tomorrow."

"You don't have to put emphasis on the word 'supplies', Dad," I smirked. He shifted uncomfortably. It was very satisfying making him squirm after the rude awakening he'd given me. "We both know you're talking about tampons."

"Well, it's awkward being a dad to a teenaged daughter," he chuckled, nudging me. I nudged him back and smiled a little. I was unable to help the small sigh that escaped me. Dad gave me a soft look and kissed my cheek. "I'll be back by nightfall, okay?"

"Okay, Dad…" I said. We both got up and entered the main room of our grimy apartment. There were only a few rooms in the place – the kitchen which was an open area attached to the living room, my bedroom and the bathroom. My father and brother slept in the living room – they had deemed it appropriate to give me the single bedroom as I got older so I could be a girl in peace. Dorks. I closed the bedroom door behind me and walked straight through the living room into the kitchen to grab some food, completely ignoring my brother, Francis and Uncle Louis sat around checking guns and ammunition. I was used to the sight of bullets and weaponry – I'd grown up around it. I heard people in the street or teachers at school sometimes talking about the days before the world became a giant infectious mess when people wouldn't discuss weaponry at the dinner table, they'd talk about those computer things and a whole bunch of stuff long forgotten and unusable other than for spare parts.

"Oh, morning, Sprout," smiled Uncle Louis as he looked away from his revolver. "You sleep well?"

I shrugged. "Gunfire woke me up during the night, but that's nothing new."

"Yeah, the damn Rebels were causing trouble with the soldiers again," Uncle Louis sighed, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, I don't know who's worse – those assholes, the soldiers, the militants or the Lost."

"They're all pretty much tied," Matthew said, handing over a hunting rifle after he'd finished cleaning it off. Uncle Louis took at started to load the ammo. I leant against the kitchen counter and watched as they finished strapping their weapons to their backpacks and headed for the door. Dad looked back at us and smiled before leaving with Uncle Louis.

Glancing at Francis and Matthew who had gone into their habit of ignoring me at times like this, I rolled my eyes and went back into my room. After a quick change into my second and only other outfit (a dark green t-shirt and dirty jeans) I put my trainers on and got my own backpack. I always made sure I had the necessities constantly packed just in case the worst happened again – raids weren't uncommon and on more than one occasion I'd heard of an entire Area getting destroyed because the Lost had found their way inside; the Clean were not cared for, they were killed with the rest when the bombs went off and if that were to happen to Area Rook, my home, I was ready to run. I had my clothes, water, a walkie-talkie which joined the same system as Matthew's and Dad's, a couple of ration cards, _supplies_, a flashlight, spare batteries and the gun Dad had given me for emergencies along with its correct ammo. I'd only ever fired it once – and that was at a pigeon…

I hitched it onto my shoulders and left my room again, tying my hair back with a thin band in the process. Francis and Matthew looked at me and stood, but I shot them both looks that said 'sit back down or else'.

"Dad's not the only one that has to leave the house today," I said.

"Francis is in charge though."

"But the military won't know that if they don't catch me," I replied. "I won't be too long, I just need to go bring something back before I lose it forever."

Francis sighed and shook his head. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"It's not the first time I've done this," I said.

"Alone?"

I hesitated for a millisecond. "Yeah, alone," I lied. I was good at lying so they rolled their eyes once more and sat down.

"If you're not back in 2 hours I'll be calling to find where you are," Francis said. "Uncle George isn't killing me just because you're turning into a rebel."

"At least I'm not a Rebel," I replied, walking out the front door and shutting it behind me.

* * *

><p>Cursing under my breath as soon as the front door shut, I took my backpack off of my back and knelt down on the floor to look through it. True to my too-late thoughts, I had everything that I would need except for a damn gasmask. Going out in the areas I was going without it would be pretty much suicide – I knew for a fact that there were going to be Lost out there but at what stages of infection they were at I had no clue.<p>

The Lost were once human beings but they had changed due to an experiment gone wrong nearly forty years ago. No one really knew what had happened in that lab but the people who came out of the building were not normal. They had evolved into monsters. Skin so pale they were luminescent, eyes completely red – no irises or pupils, just a block of pure red – and teeth warped into razor sharp points. Their finger nails were talon like and with one bite or scratch, the venom from whatever had turned them entered the body of the victim. It could be an hour or a week, the length of time always varied depending on the overall health of the victim, but everyone turned. Gas was used to divert the creatures away from the Safe Zones, the fenced off Areas that had been set up in major cities across the globe, so they wandered through the woods that had regrown and begun reclaiming the Earth once more. However, it didn't stop them finding the manmade tunnels that ran beneath the surface – train tunnels, mining shafts and the like. Nowhere was really safe for long.

Luckily for me, the area that I was going to was within the Area walls so it shouldn't have been too bad – the military were very good at their inspections to make sure that there were no Lost inside of the Safe Zones, but that didn't mean that they didn't make mistakes from time to time; especially when the Rebels and Militants got involved.

I swore to myself again and looked back at the door – I couldn't go back in there and show them that I had forgotten something; they would only make me stay. I was always prepared for these kinds of events, I wasn't incompetent in the slightest but this one time I fucking forgot the damn gasmask and it was making me lose time. Shaking my head, I hitched my backpack back into position again and continued my trek through the building. There was a secret exit that I had helped to build with the other scavengers – a short drop down into the basement and then out into the streets. It was well hidden and only a few people knew about it making it the perfect escape route. Someone was always on guard of the entrance though, just in case – a door, once opened, may be entered in either direction.

I remembered that there had been equipment left behind from another trip out into the city – I knew that a couple of guns and lots of ammo had been left behind; I was just hoping that a gasmask had been left behind too. That would have been extremely helpful.

I walked down a flight of stairs and along the next corridor, nodding to certain people as I made way along. I knew pretty much everyone in the building, which was more than what Matthew could say. I made the effort to get to know the people around us so that I knew who I could trust when it came to me leaving the building and having someone to go with me if I really wanted the company. You see, in a world where everyone could turn into your enemy at any moment, it's good to know who you can count as an ally. There were many people in the building that just wanted to have a quiet life – the elderly who had seen far too much blood shed, the young who were just being brought into the world by mothers and fathers who wanted nothing more than to keep them safe from the monsters, and those who just needed something to keep them going as the days seemed to get longer. The one thing that everyone had in common was the fact that we were all pretty thin – there were some people that had managed to get toned (me and Matthew being two of those people) but there were those that were pretty much wasting away because they couldn't get the rations they needed.

Take for instance the little old couple that lived in apartment 9 of the building. Iris and Calvin. They were 20 years old when the outbreak happened and had been together from day one. I remember the very first day I met them and they had been pretty thin then, but as I passed their home that morning and saw the pair sat out on the landing watching the people walk by they seemed as though they were literally shrinking into themselves. I had started to feel a little nauseous being near them despite the fact that they were the loveliest people that you could ever hope to imagine – they just smelt and looked like corpses. If it wasn't for the fact that they moved and talked and stayed in the same place 24 hours a day I would have thought that they had died without any of us noticing. Needless to say, I would miss them greatly when the day came for them to pass – but for the time being I was trying to ignore the fact that they were the walking dead already.

As soon as I got to the lounge area where the exit had been created, I looked at Pablo despondently for a moment as he looked up from the shotgun he was cleaning and grunted at me. Pablo was 23, from Cuba and he really didn't like me. And to be fairly honest I wasn't all that keen on him either. He was dark skinned with brown eyes and brown dreadlocks tied back into an odd ponytail and he always where weird shirts and shorts. You know, like those cheesy old holiday clothes people seemed to always where nearly 100 years ago.

"Do you know if any gasmasks were left down in there?" I asked. He sighed and took the cigar he was smoking from his mouth and looked at me squarely.

"Why do you want one, Brat?" he asked.

"So I don't breath in any fucking gas, jackass," I replied, folding my arms.

"Don't you have your own damn gasmask?"

"I do but I forgot it and can't go back to get it," I said. "Now is there one down there or not?"

"Yes, yes," grumbled Pablo. "I remember Cameron saying that he had left his gasmask down there last time – just don't fucking break it."

"I won't," I replied, walking over to the unit that was covering the hole of the exit. Pablo watched me out of the corners of his eyes, not bothering to get up and help me push the damned thing out of the way. But even without his help I managed to get the unit out of the way enough for me to slip through and jump down into the basement. I bent my knees as I landed, looking around at the area and flicking on the lights so that I could see where I was going. I walked through to a smaller room that had been separated by a mental door – there used to be a water tank in there but it had been converted into a storage unit instead.

Walking through the area, I smiled as I found the gasmask that Pablo had said about and tucked it into my backpack for safe keeping. Turning around, I grabbed some ammo and a spare gun before heading out of the area and out into the back alley by the building.

Waiting until a patrol had gone by and I knew that I was unseen, I walked around to the back of the building and down a long path that led to the fencing. It was broken from the last time a Lost had managed to get close enough to the Area but the people in the buildings had been a lot quicker with their guns that it had been climbing underneath the metal mesh. Climbing underneath it, I lowered it back into its original position so as not to give away my location and started to make my way through the long grass towards the more derelict buildings in the Area.

Having grown up in those kinds of environments, it wasn't really anything spectacular seeing the old buildings crumpling to the ground, holes through the windows and even the tallest of buildings leaning over against each other like someone had pushed them over to play a large crappy game of dominoes. What would have been more exciting would have been to see them when they were freshly built or just when they were stood tall and proud and owned the skyline. I saw pictures in old books and magazines of these amazing cities from the past and how the horizon was dominated by these tall structures that gleamed in the sunshine – now they were desecrated by the dead and living alike and the world just looked as though nature was claiming the land back.

I walked through a shallow pond that had formed from the leaking pipework of one of the old buildings the military had forgotten to turn the water off for and looked around me. I could hear screaming and gunshots in the distance – someone must have been infected in the ration line again.

It happened nearly every other day. Someone would have managed to smuggle another person in or sneak in themselves and find residence there. Sometimes they wouldn't even realise that they had been infected, sometimes they were little kids. I mean, one time I was walking around with my friend Arianna and we had to hurry to the other side of the street as soldiers dragged this poor woman out into the street. She was screaming that she hadn't been bitten, that she was meant to be there and that she had family waiting for her. But the military police forced her to the ground and began removing her clothing piece by piece until they found the bite wound on the base of her spine... The soldiers had their assault rifles pressed to the back of her head before she could even say 'stop'.

That was probably the first time I had seem someone get killed in such a cold way, and she was left in the road for a while before one of the other soldiers ordered for her corpse to be 'taken and dealt with like the others'. What that meant I didn't know but it couldn't have been very good.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I climbed up the side of the fencing on the side of one of the buildings and entered. The floorboards were slanted and creaked under the added weight as I got my footing, like the whole building was just fighting against gravity to just stay standing for a little bit longer. I had entered into what looked like an office building – I'd been in there before but I had never really had the chance to look around. The buildings hadn't changed since the day of the outbreak all those years ago – like, the calendar on the wall still had the June 2015 page open and ready to have the days marked off. I decided that I would have a little snoop around this old office, rooting through the draws and taking supplies that I could use like tape and gears; anything that I could use at a later point to make something new or better. Looking at the calendar I read through the little memos that had been written down by this person. None of them said about the end of the world of course, but it was amusing to look through what people's lives had been like back in 2015. It all seemed so trivial – for instance, that person had birthday's marked on their calendar:

Muriel's 80th – 7th June, Kelly's 18th – 17th June, Jacob's 30th – 21st June…

Whoever these people were must have been important to this person – it was definitely the office of a woman, so I was making up the stories in my head that this lady's family was her world. She had her mother-in-law's birthday to deal with, then her daughter's and then it would have been her brother's but then the world went to shit. I wondered whether they celebrated together when it all calmed down or whether they were separated or killed… It was sad to think that these people literally had no idea what was going to happen to them before it struck, that they were that unprepared that everything turned into the world that I was growing up in.

I tried to find a picture of the family anywhere in the room but I couldn't find anything. It would have been nice to think about what a normal family would have been doing at this time on a Saturday afternoon. I had heard stories from my parents about the days before – if the weather was nice they would have things called barbeques and families would gather together and eat and have fun. It was a nice, simple time…

"Stop it…" I muttered to myself, shaking myself a little to bring me back to the task at hand. I walked over to the office door and opened it tentatively, listening carefully after the creaking had finished for the sounds of any footsteps. The coast was clear for now so I stepped out of the office and flicked on the torch on the strap of my backpack. As much as it was still a little sunny outside – it was an overcast day the dismal effects that came with the middle of October – the inside of the building was dingy and dark. It smelt damp because of the leaking pipes and the tilt of the building putting pressure on everything holding it together – not to mention the dead people that had been inside at one point or another.

Not that I wasn't thankful that it was quiet, but it was really starting to creep me out. It was too quiet. You know those times at night when the darkness just seems that little too dark or everything around you just seems that little too still? Like something was waiting to jump out and had to be deliberately quiet just to get your sense of security higher before it crushed it down…

I walked through the corridors of the building, trying to make my way as quietly as possible through the debris left behind from the collapse of the building and quite possibly the panicked people that had tried to flee the building during the outbreak. Oh, and anyone else who felt like wandering through this place… No one really cared to clean up after themselves these days. I checked in every single door as I went along, making sure that I was totally alone and didn't miss out on the chance to grab extra supplies – waste not want not, as my father would often quote to me. Who it was a quote from I would never know.

I got to the flight of stairs that would take me down to the lowest level, the part that had dropped down like a slop to the outside storage areas, and was about to start climbing down when a noise sounded above me.

Clicking…

My heart stopped for a moment and I held my breath as I backed away from the stairs and entered the room that I had left open directly behind me. I ducked behind a desk and stayed absolutely silent, listening as the clicking got louder and footsteps hurried downstairs. There were fucking Lost upstairs… and they were making their way to my floor.

Who the fuck didn't clear this place out? Who the fuck let those fuckers so close to the Area?! There were fucking Lost about to find a way into the damn Area and that meant so much shit. I mean, I could have dealt with one but there were four… Four of the damn things! They weren't really pack creatures so they started to split off, but one of them came into my room. I covered my mouth slowly, making sure that my nostrils were covered too to stop any sound of my breathing. The Lost had only one fault in their development – they couldn't talk, only make a disturbing clicking noise from the back of their throats. They were partially sighted so the noise helped them see a little better.

It's clicking started to get more furious – I say it, but it was clearly a female Lost. 'Looking' around the room as it moved around trying to find where it had heard anything before. I was nervous, my heart beating quickly in the hopes of finding something to throw to distract it. As quietly as I could, I pulled open a draw in the desk and riffled through it, picking out a stapler – that would work. Aiming at the other side of the room, I threw it hard so it hit the large metal filing cabinets. The creature freaked out and ran over to it giving me the opportunity to flee from the room and make for the stairs. But the noise had attracted the other Lost. As I got out into the hallway, they came running from the rooms they had entered. I had nowhere to hide and shooting them would have only drawn more out so I sprinted down the stairs, jumping the last few and slamming my hands against the door at the bottom. I pushed it open and tried to shut it, only to get thrown to the ground as the nearest Lost pushed it hard. I screamed slightly as it jumped me, using all the strength I could muster to keep its head away from me so it couldn't bite me.

My heart was beating so fast… This was it… This was how I was going to die and no one would know… The other Lost came outside and I knew I was goner… But then they screeched and collapsed; arrows through their heads. The Lost on me did the same, another arrow taking it out.

I panted hard as I pushed it away, scrambling slightly to get away from them. But then I realised what had happened and turned to look up at whoever had saved me, unsure whether they were about to give me more trouble than the Lost…

* * *

><p><strong>A Halloween challenge!<strong>

**I wanted to improve on this story and make it a good scary tale so that's what I'm gonna do. I hope you guys enjoy.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The New Age**

**Chapter Two**

There were four people stood before me as I looked up, my breath still coming out in harsh pants after the attack. Three guys and a girl: the first boy, the one stood closest to me, had scruffy brown hair that seemed to be getting a little too long in the fringe and neck area, was fairly tall and pretty well built; the second was slightly shorter and thinner with spikey dark blonde hair; the third was a mid-height between the two with light blonde hair; and finally the girl was tall with deep red hair tied back into a ponytail. They all had green eyes and thick eyebrows, and they were all staring at me with their crossbows pointed straight at my body.

"Are you clean?" demanded the girl, stepping forwards.

"W…What…" I asked, dazed for a moment as everything started to catch up with me.

"I said: are you fucking clean?" snapped the girl, pointing her crossbow between my eyes dangerously. I saw the tip of the arrow glint in the sunshine. "Were you fucking bit?! Tell me now, or so help me God I will put one of these arrows straight between your eyes and through your fucking brain!"

"I'm clean!" I yelped, holding my hands up in defence. "You can check! No bites, no nothing! I'm clean!"

The girl looked me up and down for a moment before retracting her weapon and holding out a hand to pull me up. I hesitated for a moment before grasping it and getting to my feet again. I looked away from my strange rescuers for a moment to inspect the damage on the Lost – nice clean kills by strong arrows that they now moved to recollect and wipe down. I definitely needed to trade in for one of those crossbows… But what was puzzling me was how no one had managed to clear out these fuckers before? Why were they so damn close to the Zone? I know I wasn't meant to be there and from the looks of it these guys weren't either so what the fuck was going on?

I watched them as I sorted out my backpack again, ensuring I still had everything before speaking up again: "So, uh, thanks for saving my ass back there." I rubbed my neck. "Never had that problem before, there's never been that many so close to the Zone before…"

"Don't sweat it," said the light blonde boy, stepping towards me.

"So, uh, who are you guys… I know everyone in the Zone but you're new to me…" I said. They gave me edgy looks. "Look, I won't shop you if that's what you're worried about. I'm not meant to be out here either so I don't particularly want the fucking military to find out about this."

Glancing back at the girl, the dark blonde boy waited for a nod of approval before addressing me. "First, we want to know about you… Only fair right?"

"Fair enough," I shrugged. "The name's Amelia Jones, I'm eighteen years old, and I'm sneaking through to the outside to get back something I left behind the last time I left by myself. My brother Matt and cousin Francis are waiting for me back at our apartment and my Dad… Well, he's working with my uncle, Louis…"

"George and Louis Jones?" said the girl suddenly, stepping forwards.

I blinked. "Uh, yeah…"

"Our parents are meeting with them to smuggle some cargo," the brunette boy said.

I raised my eyebrows slightly. "So you're Rebels? Or at least your parents are?" They all nodded so I rubbed my head and sighed. "Tell me who you are, then."

"I'm Scarlet Kirkland," said the girl, a faint hint of a smile on her lips as she looked me up and down again. I hoped that meant she was starting to trust me. "I'm the oldest here. Next up is Bryn, the brown haired one there; then we have Ryan, the shortass over there; and finally that grumpy looking one there is Arthur."

"Fuck off Scarlet," said Arthur, the light blonde boy. He rolled his eyes and looked back at me. "We've got Ryan's twin sister, Aednat, and our youngest sister, Sophie, waiting in a building back there while we checked everything here was safe enough for us all to pass through."

"That's a bit off isn't it? Keeping the two youngest girls behind?" I said, folding my arms.

"Nah, Ryan, Arthur and Aednat take turns watching out for Sophie," Scarlet said. "This just happened to be Aednat's turn."

"How old are you then?"

"I'm twenty-six," Scarlet said. "Bryn's twenty-two, Ryan and Aednat are twenty, Arthur's nineteen and Sophie's fourteen."

"What were you looking for anyway?" asked Ryan, looking around the area. "It's pretty dangerous out here to be going around alone. Cos on our way through we picked up some things that might have been that…"

"It's gonna sound pretty stupid… but it's a photo of me and my Mum when I was kid…" I sighed. "I had it with me as good luck on a trip out one time and we got rushed by some Lost. I dropped it and wanted to find it…"

"Is this it?" said Arthur, rummaging through his backpack. He pulled out a scruffy piece of paper and handed it to me, a grin forming on my face as it really was the photo of my mother and me. "I'll take that smile as a yes."

"It is! Thank you!" I smiled. "Wait… Why do you have my photo with you? I get picking up supplies and shit cos I do that all the time… But… a photo?"

"Arthur's quite the collector," Scarlet explained. "He has this little scrapbook he's been putting together of all the old photos he's found whilst we've been travelling the country with our parents. I mean, he's found some pretty old stuff and sometimes he makes up stories for what might have been going on when that image was taken."

I smiled as Arthur refused to meet anyone's eye, the boy fiddling with one of the straps of his backpack awkwardly. I decided that he had suffered enough embarrassment for now so changed the subject. "Look, I'm not sure how long this job our parents are on is gonna be but if you wanted… as thanks for all this… If you guys need shelter you're more than welcome to come back to the apartment with me to crash for the night."

"Are you sure?" Bryn asked. "Cos that would be great…"

"It's the least I could do."

They looked at each other for a moment before Scarlet smiled and nodded. "We'll take you up on that offer," she said. "I don't think we should go back through that way though," she added, glancing back at the building I had ran out of. "If there were four Lost that you never knew were in there then there are probably more. The way we came in seems like our best way out plus we need to go get Sophie and Aednat too."

"I know my way around this area," I said. "So I can guide us through that complex over there to get us back into the subway. That'll lead us up right outside the apartment building I live in."

"Then by all means," Arthur said, pointing in the direction of the building his sisters were hiding in. As a group, we walked away from the dangerous building and headed through the greenery that had grown in the last 40 years. It was amazing how much nature was taking back of the world, how the Earth was simply claiming itself back since the outbreak had happened. There were plants growing up the sides of buildings, some of them getting so damaged from the growths that they were literally falling apart and over. A water pipe had seemed to have burst recently, most likely from the pressure of their still being a working water system but no outlets available for the water pressure to be released. The water had turned into a small pond, not too deep but certainly wide enough that we needed to wade through it to get across. It was dirty and green, small bugs floating on and under the surface only to get disturbed by us as went across.

I still hadn't totally made my mind up about these Rebel children – not that you could really call them children, I think they might have killed me if I had said it aloud. I know I would have. They seemed to have an air about them that they knew what they were doing, that they had had the experience of this kind of exploration before – but at the same time there was a nervousness as they had no clue just where they were going. This Zone, likely even the entire Area was totally new to them. I knew that being the children of Rebels must have given them the experience they would need to be able to survive without their parents – Scarlet certainly seemed the most capable of the lot, making me think that maybe she had taken things a little more to heart than the others due to her age.

They all had a confidence about them as they held their weapons – they were very familiar with them, so they must have had a lot of practice as they grew up. I knew my way around weapons because of my Dad and the life he had chosen to lead since the outbreak – I studied more on my own because of the things that I had seen so I couldn't even begin to imagine what the kids of Rebels would have seen. Plus they all seemed to take protecting their youngest sister seriously – taking shifts to keep an eye on her, to keep her safe whilst the others went ahead to clear a path for them. I guess it was because my family had taken to ignoring me when Dad left to work that I couldn't understand why these people were so close. Though at that moment Scarlet and Arthur were bickering quietly about something, they were still alert, working as a team. They had taken down the Lot that had attacked me without even grazing me with an arrow – all four of them taking down a Lost each like it was some sport…

Soon we had reached the side of the building, Bryn boosting Scarlet up and Arthur boosting me up so that we could help pull them up into the open hole in the building. I could hear slight gasps as we got inside, the clicking of a bow being prepared to shoot so turned and looked at the two girls stood behind us. Scarlet turned too and smiled at her younger sister's alertness, the other red-headed girl lowering her weapon.

"Scarlet, you scared the shit out of me," she said. "Who's this?"

"Aednat, this is Amelia," replied Scarlet. "We helped her out just now and she's offered us a place to crash out for the night."

"Oh," Aednat said, looking at me. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," I smiled.

"Uh, hello? You mind giving us some help?!"

We looked round and saw Ryan barely climbing up onto the floor with us, frustration clear on his face as he looked up at us. I couldn't help but laugh with Scarlet and Aednat as he rolled his eyes, moving over to help get Arthur and Bryn up into the building too. I smiled as a smaller girl walked over too, the same shade of blonde as Arthur but with blue eyes. I gathered this was Sophie.

"So, we're going to your house then?" she asked, looking up at me.

"Uh huh," I replied. "We have to get to the basement of this place though first cos there's a hole down there that'll lead down under the street into the subway system right near the end so we can run up into the apartment complex."

"We didn't actually check the basement…" Aednat admitted. "So I don't know if there's any Lost down there."

"I'd say there shouldn't be – that's where the gas is pushed through to keep those fuckers away - but those Lost certainly took me by surprise so let's just be cautious," I said, walking over to the door. I got my gun ready before opening the door slowly and checking outside. With them following me, I walked through the old tilted building carefully, looking around. I was holding my breath slightly, making sure to keep my breathing to an absolute minimum just in case the gas had started to leak through the rest of the building too much. Breathing in a tiny amount was nothing but a big breath like a gasp would end you.

We went down a few floors, making sure there was nothing sinister about to get us as we went along before I finally found the basement door. I glanced back at the others as I spotted the crusted fungus that was growing up against the door, the siblings following my lead in putting on a gasmask. Arthur came over to me and helped me break the fungus away from the door – both of us kicking at it so that we didn't get any of it on our skin. It wouldn't do anything to us, but it was better for us if we didn't touch it in the long run. The Lost were like snakes – they shed their skin every few months and the residue that gets left behind crusts and forms a horrible fungus. It wasn't infectious unless you consumed it – it would give you a rash though.

Eventually we cleared away the fungus so I took hold of the brass door knob and nodded to Arthur to keep his bow at the ready. He tensed in concentration, aiming it straight for the door as his siblings kept their guards up too. Steeling myself, I turned the knob and pushed the door open slightly glad that I put my gasmask on when I did. The air was thick with gas down there and I could just about hear the sounds of some Lost that had wandered inside and couldn't find their way out. I turned my flashlight on, walking down the steps into the basement slowly and looking around. The hole into the subway was uncovered, the gas flowing around the room sickeningly – but clicking and screeching of the Lost was coming from below us. Lost were in the subway.

"Well, this has turned into a tricky situation hasn't it?" said Ryan, crouching down to look down the hole. He shone his own light down there to get a better look, shaking his head as he tried to focus. "The air is so thick down there but I can definitely hear the Lost, at least three so far but at a distance… How far away is the exit of the subway?"

"Not too far," I replied. "Not even a five minute walk."

"Depending on how many Lost there really are, I think we could stealth our way through there," Ryan said, looking back up at us.

"… I don't suppose we really have much choice…" Scarlet said, looking down too. "I'll go down first and scope things out. You guys follow when I signal you. In pairs though: Ryan and Sophie, new girl and Arthur, then Aednat and Bryn. We need to keep as quiet as possible."

"Go for it," Arthur said.

We watched as Scarlet dropped down carefully into the hole, the slightly echo of her feet reaching us and making us hold our breaths. Everything was silent for a moment before she hissed up to us, "the coast is clear. The Lost are far off."

So we went in the order she said until we were all down in the hole. It was very hard to see so there was really no telling just how many Lost were down there, but we started to move through the darkness quietly, ducking behind units and pillars every so often as one walked by. I led the way through, hurrying up the slope as I saw the sunlight that meant we had reached the right bit. I slowed down though, looking around and climbing through the hole that had been created in the fence surrounding the entrance to the subway and helping the others through too. Once we were out and had checked to see if we had been spotted we took off our gasmasks and wandered up to the building I lived in.

"So that place was closed off for a reason then," Sophie said, glancing back at the place we had just left.

"Yeah," I nodded. "But it's not meant to be that bad… The soldiers aren't allowed to let things like that get so bad, especially under a Zone. What the fuck are they doing?"

"We're not really the ones to ask," Arthur pointed out. I shrugged and opened the main door of the building and let them inside, making sure no one was watching us before shutting the door once more.

They followed me through the building, observing everything and everyone as we went by and up onto the floor my apartment was on.

"You guys don't sound like you're from America," I observed, trying to make conversation again.

Scarlet chuckled. "Our parents are originally from Britain," she explained. "They were shipped over here when things got bad over there but they determinedly kept their accents and passed them onto us."

"Fair enough," I chuckled, walking up to my front door. "Well, here we are. Be patient for a moment though… my older brother and cousin may just be a little bit pissed by this."

"Fair enough," Arthur said, smirking as I realised he'd mimicked me.

Rolling my eyes, I opened the door and went inside, keeping it open for them to come inside too. Matthew and Francis looked round from where they had been sat talking – Matthew on his mattress and Francis on the couch. The looked at us in disbelief, standing up quickly and defensively.

"Wait!" I said, holding my hands out. "These are the Kirkland's; they're the kids of the two people Dad and Uncle Louis have gone to work with! I got into a bit of trouble out there and they helped me so I've offered them shelter for the night!"

"You're… You're letting fucking Rebels into the apartment?!" Matthew snapped. "Are you fucking insane?! We could get prosecuted for harbouring them! You and I will go to fucking camp! Francis is old enough to be executed! What the fuck?!"

"Only if they're found out!" I sighed. "Which they won't be! Now calm the fuck down!"

Taking a deep breath, Matthew rubbed his temple before looking at the Kirkland's. "Sorry…" he said. "Thanks for saving my stupid little sister… From?"

"Four Lost," said Bryn before I could shut him up.

"FOUR LOST?" Matthew exclaimed, rounding on me. "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!"

"BREATHE MATTHEW!" I said, pushing him back down onto his mattress. I shook my head as he closed his eyes and took another deep breath, covering his face with his hands to keep himself calm. "Well, this is my older brother Matthew and this is my cousin Francis. Nineteen and twenty-six, if you were curious and yeah. Welcome to our place."

* * *

><p>By nightfall, everyone was getting along better than that first meeting. The main bulk of the group were in the living room, laughing and talking as though it was simply one of those sleepover things that I had read about in books.<p>

I, on the other hand, was sat in my bedroom looking out of the window. I could see the city now that I had pulled away one of the bits of wood that had been put up to block anyone's entrance. The sun had set but the sky was still not quite at that final stage of evening yet and there was no one on the streets as curfew had gone into effect almost three and a half hours ago. I looked round as my door opened, smiling a little as that Arthur guy came over and sat down with me. He looked out the window too, just staring out at the Zone entirely for the very first time.

"What do you think the world was like before all this?" I asked, looking out again too.

"I don't really know…" he replied, looking sad for a moment. "I don't know if it was a simpler time or not. It was certainly safer but simpler…"

"What do you suppose people did at this time?" I pondered. "I've read about all these old things that happened years ago. People would have sleepovers, parties… They could spend hours staring at screens talking to people half way across the globe… Playing games and smiling…"

"It's still like that in the Centre's apparently…" Arthur said. "You've seen the brochures they put in the ration lines, right? The history of the Centre of this country is the darkest of any country…"

"I've seen some things," I replied. Every country's capital city was now a Centre, the main area where the rest of the country was controlled. They lived in paradise, it was assumed. The ivory tower culture of the people staring down at the people they oppressed. "Washington D.C. was quartered off to protect the leaders of the country as the outbreak occurred. A giant wall was built around the boarder of the city cutting it off from the rest of the country. From a Capital to a Centre like the rest of the world – no one really knows what goes on inside…"

"They're meant to have clean water from taps, that Internet thing, proper electricity and more food you could ever imagine!" Arthur said. "It would be amazing to get inside and see… Even live…"

"It would be amazing if the world was like that…" I muttered. "No barricades, no Lost, no wars and fights for territory… Just calm, clean… Everyone equal…"

"Tough changes need to happen before that happens…" Arthur sighed.

I nodded, but as I was about to respond I was stopped by a sudden bang. We looked at each other, and then back out at the streets watching as one by one buildings in the Zone exploded and gunfire filled the air – the military were swarming the Zone, we were being raided.

* * *

><p><strong>Keeping up the updates! Gonna keep it going!<strong>

**And a note for you all if you're interested:**

Scarlet – Fem!Scotland

Bryn – Wales

Ryan – Northern Ireland

Aednat (pronounced Enid) – Republic of Ireland

Sophie – Fem!Sealand

**So, yeah! I hope you come back for more and I will see you later!**


	3. Chapter 3

**The New Age**

**Chapter Three**

A crackling noise sounded in my backpack on the other side of the room, a sound that startled both myself and Arthur out of our stunned stares out of the window. Shaking myself both mentally and physically, I got off of my mattress and hurried to pull the bag open, trying to block out the noises of screaming in the distance.

"Am… Amie…" came my father's voice through the walkie-talkie I pulled out, his tone still managing to sound desperate even through the disjointedness of the signal. I nodded to Arthur to follow me back into the main room of the apartment so that the conversation could be heard by everyone else. It was peculiar walking into the living room to see such an abundance of people sat around looking out of the windows trying to get a glimpse of the chaos that was starting to build up outside.

"Dad," I said after holding down the button. "I read you, Dad, come in!"

"Amelia! Thank God…" said Dad. "You, Matt and Francis need to try and find a way out of the Zone."

"We know," I replied, glancing out of the window as an explosion went off in the distance. "We can see the raids…"

"They are wiping out this Zone to start fresh!" Dad shouted. "There are Lost inside! Underneath! You need to get out before the soldiers catch you because if they do they will kill you!"

"We were just about to do that, Dad! We're not stupid!" I replied, pinching my forefinger and thumb of my left hand to the bridge of my nose. I looked at the others, mainly at the Kirkland's and had a sudden thought. "Dad, are you still with…" Arthur whispered their names to me, "Elizabeth and James Kirkland?"

There was a pause on Dad's end, an awkward silence filling the speaker of the talkie before he spoke again. "How did you know their names, Amelia?"

"We're with their children at the moment," I sighed. "You can tell them that their family is fine, we're just going to have to find of meeting up with you all…"

"It's going to be very difficult…" Dad said. "You need to get to the Outside and out the other side of the old part of the city. Make your way to the Golden Gate Bridge… We'll try and meet you there, but we'll let you know if we get into-"

"Dad?" I muttered, looking at the talkie as it crackled. "Dad…?"

"Ame, what the hell just happened?" asked Matt, looking between me and the talkie. I shook my head – Dad's line had gone dead before he had even finished his sentence… Something or someone had cut him off.

Turning off the talkie again to conserve its battery life, I looked at the others and stood firm. It was going to be a difficult task getting out of the Zone and into the city but I had done it plenty of times before. Scarlet stood up and hitched her backpack up onto her back, looking around at her siblings to do the same and get ready.

"We need to get moving," I said, running to get my own backpack. I glanced back at Matthew and Francis, giving them a look that showed that I wasn't going to take any of their nonsense. "Seriously! MATT! FRANCIS! FUCKING MOVE UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE!"

"This is ridiculous," Matt said, getting up from his seat and grabbing his backpack. "How are we going to get to the outside in this situation?"

"Lucky for you I know where I'm going and how to navigate outside the wall," I countered. Matthew looked at me sceptically but followed me to the door, the others behind us waiting for me to take the lead. It felt weird taking charge of such a large group, most of which I had literally only just met – a few hours ago this group had saved me from getting devoured by Lost and now I was having to be their guide out of the Zone… Everything that day had happened in such a blur that it was starting to make my head swim.

Shaking myself mentally, I took in a deep breath and opened the front door, walking outside into the corridor and looking around at the sheer chaos that was occurring out there. There was absolute panic as families tried to get to safety, parents trying to get children of all ages out of the building before they were slaughtered by the military. The screams were beginning to hurt my ears, but I knew that we had to endure them if we were going to get out of the building alive – as cruel as it sounded, the louder these people were the less likely it was for the soldiers to hear us when we made our way out of the building.

"Come on," I said, motioning for them to follow me through the building. I hoped that Pablo hadn't locked himself inside just yet – we needed to get to that exit before anyone else got to it. But knowing him he had probably locked the door and had started to barricade himself inside – and seeing as I was far from his favourite person in the building it was a slim chance that he would let me and the others inside. I ran up the stairs and stopped suddenly as I heard a loud bang behind us, turning round to look out of the window as I saw the building on the other side of the street burst into flames as rockets were shot at it violently – if the building on the other side of the street had been attacked already that meant that our building was about to be struck at any moment…

So many thoughts were going through my head in that moment – why was all of this happening? Was it because of the Rebels with us at that moment? Was it because of how close the Lost had got to the Area or the fact that there was so many in the subway bellow us? What the hell was going on…?

I slapped myself and continued to run down the corridor, looking around as small children clung to their mothers and fathers as they ran in the other direction to us – none of them aware that the exit and possibly the only safe haven they could find was right behind them. I looked on sadly as the elderly couple who had been there for as long as I could remember continued to sit and watch as everyone ran around in fear, their wrinkled hands interlinked as usual but the veins more prominent as they clung to each other – I realised that they weren't going to move no matter what anyone said.

Just as we got to Pablo's door another loud bang happened, but this time it was below us… It was the front door of the building being kicked in… The soldiers were now raiding this building before their counter strike happened… I grabbed at the handle of the door desperately and turned the knob, sighing in relief as it opened. There was no sign of Pablo inside meaning that he had probably left one way or another – it was a little disconcerting leaving this way without having him breathing down my neck for once but nothing was the same at that moment.

I hurried over to the cabinet and looked round at the others. "I NEED TO MOVE THIS!" I shouted. "HELP ME!"

Getting the hint, Bryn and Matthew ran over and started to push and pull at the cabinet with me to give us a small enough gap to slip through and still have it non-detectable. I stepped aside and instructed them to go in first, the two guys jumping down into the hole ready to help everyone else that got down there. Scarlet pushed Sophie over next, Aednat going with her little sister to jump down and make she was okay. Francis and Arthur went next and finally Scarlet jumped down with Ryan. I could hear the soldiers running along the corridor out there already, lingering for a single moment to listen before I actually dropped down too.

I looked around at everyone as they wandered around the base, all of them obviously still in a daze like I was – except that I seemed to be hiding my fright a bit better than they were. I couldn't blame Sophie – I gathered it was the first time she had seen a raid like this being only fourteen so I knew I had to be lenient with her, but the others were older and more experienced.

"We need to go through here," I said, walking over to the smaller room with the metal door I had exited through earlier in the day. I didn't wait for them, knowing that the soldiers could easily find our exit if they were looking hard enough and I really didn't want to linger around and find out. I walked over to the metal door and prised it open, looking around outside carefully to make sure that they were no Lost any closer to the Zone or, worse, any soldiers. Making them aware of the all clear, I wandered around and decided to walk around to the back of the building and down a long path that led to the fencing – the same area I had walked to earlier that day.

Holding up the fencing, I let everyone go on in ahead of me and kept watch. My heart was racing as I listened to the screams, climbing underneath the fencing just in time to be thrown forwards from the force of the building behind me exploding in a big ball of flames. I hit the ground hard, winded for a moment as I turned over and looked up at the burning building – all those people who hadn't escaped… the kids… the families… the elderly couple who stayed in the same place every single day… They were all burning. Gone. Dead. Their chances take away from them as quickly as pulling a trigger.

I looked up as I felt arms around me, lifting me off of the ground and helping me to my feet. Arthur had run back for me, a look of fear on his face as he dragged me away from the area. I pointed to the large building where the Lost had attacked me, figuring there shouldn't be any in there anymore. We all climbed up and into the office, stopping to look back at the burning building for a moment as screams from the Zone grew louder and more terrified. I rubbed the grazes on my arms and looked around the office again, walking over to the calendar on the wall to observe those very same dates:

Muriel's 80th – 7th June; Kelly's 18th – 17th June; Jacob's 30th – 21st June

I wonder what they would have made of the situation – whether any of them had been in that fire or any of their relatives. I never knew the names of the elderly couple – I wasn't great at maths, but they could have been Jacob and his wife or whoever the woman was that owned this calendar and her husband… They could have stuck together since the very beginning of this tragedy and had ended their lives together in a burst of fire…

The thought made me sad.

I walked away from the calendar, wiping my eyes so that no one could see that I had teared up. I heard Sophie walk over to me so gave her a small smile to reassure her before slowly opening the door of the office again and heading out into the lopsided corridor. I kept my knife ready, my flashlight pointing forwards to make sure there were no Lost about to attack. Sophie stuck close behind me, the others starting to follow.

"This is the building you ran out of earlier, isn't it?" whispered Scarlet. I nodded. "Then what are we doing in here?"

"Getting to another area," I replied, looking in the rooms we passed quickly to see if there were any supplies that I had missed before. There was nothing though, so I continued through the backdoor and went outside, hopping around the dead Lost that were still lying on the ground from earlier. "Over there…" I pointed in the opposite direction to the building we had climbed into to get back to the subway. "There's a tunnel over there that will lead us totally Outside. We get there then we're in the inner city. All we have to do is get through that little section and over to the GGB and we have our parents."

"If they're alive…" muttered Matt grimly. I shot him a look. The others ignored him.

"You're pretty good at this for a kid," Scarlet said, smiling at me. I smiled back.

"I've had more experience than I care to admit," I replied, walking across the green water again and climbing up the wall that was separating the buildings from the grass trail down to the tunnel. I helped Ryan up onto the ledge, the pair of us helping the others climb up too. I glanced up as I heard a noise, blanching as I saw a helicopter flying over the Zone. "Shit… We need to run. Now!"

Wasting no more time, we got to our feet and started to run down the grass verge to the tunnel – but it seemed as though it was moving away from us. I never realised it was that far away until that moment… The helicopter was still flying over, the lights from it shining over the scene below and slowly starting to focus over in our direction. We needed to get to that tunnel to take cover before we were spotted or that would be the end.

Suddenly the world started to speed up and the tunnel was close, oh so close… We got inside and collapsed to the ground to pant and hold our stitches, watching as the light of the helicopter shone across the area we had just been before heading back to the Zone. Sitting down and leaning back against the wall of the tunnel I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, panting hard as a hollow feeling settled in the pit of my stomach…

* * *

><p><strong>Whoop whoop!<strong>

**I'm enjoying getting back into the swing of writing again. **

**No one else gives a shit but I'm having fun! xD**


	4. Chapter 4

**The New Age**

**Chapter Four**

I had never been more scared in my entire life. There was literally nothing that I could think of doing at that moment – we were stuck between a rock and hard place and as I looked around at the large group I had managed to acquire I got that horrible sinking feeling. My chest was so tight it was painful, a numb aching feeling spreading from my right shoulder to my left, and as I tried to breathe steadily the feeling just grew worse and worse. I kept clenching my hands into fists, trying to keep the tension coming and going from my arms in an attempt to keep myself calm. It wasn't really helping though – God, I had never felt so anxious before and it was making me feel sick. I looked around at the variety of faces around me, all of them red from running so fast and dirty from the soot that was still flying through the air from the dying city.

I rubbed over my heart and let out a cough, my hand covering my mouth to muffle the noise. Watching each member of the group, I tried to think of a path for us to take next but everything was happening so fast that I just couldn't think straight. Francis and Matthew were sat on the ground, both shaking though Francis was staring into space whilst Matthew kept his eyes firmly closed; Scarlet was pacing around the tunnel; Bryn was sat opposite Francis and Matthew muttering to himself quietly; Ryan and Aednat were keeping watch through the end of the tunnel we had entered; and Arthur was holding Sophie close as the girl cried quietly into his shoulder.

What had happened seemed to be one of those events that we had all heard of but never experience before – it was a legend, a myth that was never supposed to have come true. The missing towns and people were just ghost stories spread through the districts to keep the people in their places – if anyone truly knew that this kind of thing was actually happening there would be a full scale rebellion on our hands. For a moment, I thought that may not have been a bad idea – fighting properly to get our world back to what it was in the text books. We could have that utopia of old, that little slice of paradise that had been eradicated from the face of the planet over the past forty years. But what could a group of kids do? We ranged from fourteen to twenty-six. Only Francis and Scarlet were counted as adults in this stupid world, the rest of us should really be in school still under the marshal laws that were instated twenty years ago…

Shaking my head, I suppressed the thought in favour of trying to get back on track with the planning of our escape. If the military discovered that survivors had managed to get away from the district then there would be a man hunt the scale of which I had never seen before. I didn't want to be on the end of something like that – but then again they wouldn't really be able to track us? Right…?

"What are we going to do?" asked Aednat, looking round at us. Ryan slapped his hand over her mouth before she could talk anymore, all of us looking up at the little bit of sky we could see from the entrance of the tunnel as another helicopter flew overhead with a search beam scanning across the ground. As soon as it was far enough away, he let her go and let out a sigh of relief. Scarlet moved over and knelt down beside her siblings, keeping her eyes narrowed and focused on the world outside of our tunnel for a moment before looking at the twins cautiously.

"We have to keep quiet for the time being," she whispered. "We have no idea if any soldiers are on patrol out here so we have to assume that they are. They could be waiting outside just looking for survivors to snuff out. This ain't no democracy and it sure as hell isn't going to be easy, but we have to figure out a plan." She looked over at me. "Our parents are waiting for us so we have to trust each other and work out a way to join them."

"Agreed," I replied quietly. I felt Matthew's eyes on me as I saw his head turn out of the corner of my eyes. He knew that I didn't really believe that our parents were waiting for us. The chances were greater that they had been killed in that city but I couldn't say that aloud. Looking at Scarlet I could see that she didn't really believe it either. She was keeping up a front for Sophie. "We need to get to the end of the tunnel. Dad told us that they would be heading towards the Golden Gate Bridge… I've never been that far before but I know that it's on the furthest side of the city… So we should start making our way over there. If it comes to it, we can camp out in one of the abandoned buildings – but that's only as a last resort… we don't know who or what is out there."

"To be honest… neither have we…" Bryn said, looking up from his knees over at us. He looked tired, dark circles under his eyes. "But we need to do it… We have to…"

"This whole situation is insane…" Sophie said, wiping her eyes. Arthur squeezed her lightly in an attempt to calm her but looked too lost himself to be of any help. I shook my head and got to my feet, toggling the light of my flashlight and pointing it down the end of the dark tunnel.

"The way ahead of us seems clear, but I'll go on and double check," I said. "I'll flash my light down at you when the coast is clear so you need to keep an eye on both ends. Okay?"

"I'll go with you," Aednat said, getting to her feet. "I need to stretch my legs and it'll be safer if you have backup."

"Good call," I replied, smiling at her. She smiled back and walked over to me, getting out her own flashlight and pointing it in the same direction – she also got a knife from the holder on her leg and held it at the ready. Taking a deep breath, we began our trek down the end of the tunnel – it felt like a scene from this old book I found on one of my excursions into the old houses where the three characters were hiding away from this giant in a big tunnel and it kept crashing through trying to get one of them. I think it was one of the books I had stuffed away in my backpack but that was another story… Either way it was creepy but I knew that there were no giants waiting to trample me… just parasites waiting to infect and devour…

Aednat was shaking slightly. I could tell that not from looking at her directly but by catching the reflection of the light against her knife. I muttered to her to take deep breaths and she nodded, something I was surprised by seeing as she was three years older than me. Not long later we got to the end of the tunnel so peaked outside and saw that there were no immediate threats. Not trusting the environment for a second, I crouched on the floor and picked up the nearest stone and threw it towards the undergrowth nearby and waited for the sounds of something large getting hit or a startled Lost.

There was nothing.

Smiling at Aednat, she understood and pointed her flashlight down towards the others with me – we waited until they had finished running down to us before turning our attentions back to the outside. There were no trees or real bushes, just over-grown grass and rubble so there wasn't anything hiding out there but the lack of trees meant that we had no areal cover meaning that we had to be pretty quick getting past the fencing on the other side of the track and into the main bulk of the old city.

We started our walk over there, keeping as low as possible. If needed, we could drop to the ground and hide amongst the grass but we also needed to have the opportunity to run. Scarlet took to the front with me because I knew a bit more about where we were going than she did, Bryn and Francis in the back, Sophie in the middle with Arthur, Ryan, Aednat and Matthew surrounding her. There was enough space between us all to keep us from looking to conspicuous so we continued on through the undergrowth until we reached the broken chain fencing that separated the old city from the field. I held up the metal chain and let everyone inside before slipping under myself, hurrying back up to the front of the group and looking around as we walked along the cracked road.

We got quite the shock as we got further into the city, our attentions so drawn to the tilted buildings and the plants overtaking them that we didn't realise that there was a giant whole in the ground. I felt a hand on my shoulder, stopping me from walking. I looked round and saw it was Arthur, turning my attention to the direction his head had nodded to and blinking at the crater in the ground below us. Clearly this Area had been attacked long before anyone in my old Area could remember – the damage to the buildings more clear to me now as burnt out relics of a time gone by. The crater was insanely large and as we shone all our flashlights down it was clear that it went all the way into the subway – we could clearly see the remains of a train that had been passing beneath the city though it was a lot older than I was expecting, clearly something that had remained underground from the time of the outbreak.

I could see some Lost down there and from the angle of the train and the visible tracks it was obvious that this was where the Lost under our home had been coming from. Almost as if it were confirming my thoughts, a lone Lost ran out from between one of the buildings on the other side of the crater and went toppling down until it hit the roof of the train, groaned and slipped down into the tunnel.

I looked around the city a little more and tried to find a way around the hole. The others were doing the same thing but we were having a pretty hard time trying to come up with a plan. It was making me angrier than I already was – Dad and Uncle Louis knew just how bad it was out here, they fucking knew and yet they still told us to go off with a bunch of strangers into areas we had never been before and… and what? Try to reach them? We weren't as experience as they were and I sure as hell wasn't the great leader that everyone should be looking up to… Even Scarlet – someone almost eight years my senior – kept looking at me for advice.

We were all scared, I knew that, but it couldn't be up to me… I was a stupid eighteen year old trying to survive… I didn't think I would be able to cope with the guilt if someone died under my watch.

"I found something!" came Sophie's voice. I looked round and walked over to where it had come from and grinned as I saw her stood beside a small hole in the side of one of the buildings. "I've checked inside from here and nothing's moving: I think it's big enough for us all to crawl through one at a time and get through to the other side of city. Or at least get into the adjoining building first… I dunno…"

"That is a fantastic idea, Soph!" I laughed, grinning round at the others as finally joined us. "Sophie found a way inside and across!"

"Great job!" Bryn grinned, ruffling his little sister's hair. The girl shook her head and sorted it out, but smiled at him proudly nonetheless – it was nice to see a somewhat normal child for once… I know I had never really been one… "What's the plan?"

"We crawl into that hole then go through the building to the adjoining one then continue through the city," I said. "We also take out any Lost inside as quietly as we can. To be honest, it's getting seriously dark out here so we may just have to get into the other building and camp out there for the rest of the night."

"That's sounds better," Arthur said. "We'll be better rested… Though I do think that we should attempt to get in contact with our parents and let them know."

"I will," I replied. "Scarlet, you're the most experienced here so you go first and make sure it's clear and then Sophie. The rest of you decide the order yourself while I try and talk to Dad."

They agreed and got to it, leaving me to get the walkie talkie from my backpack and turn it on again. Sighing, I got to the right channel and pressed the button. "Dad… Dad, it's Amie. Do you read me? Please respond." Ii received nothing but crackling as a response. I continued talking just in case he could hear me. "We're in the old city, but it's too dark to continue… We've found refuge and will continue in the morning, but for now… It's way too dangerous to keep moving. There's this massive crater and Lost nearby. The place we've found has only one outside access that we know of so we can secure it easy enough. Night, Daddy… Please call us as soon as you can and let us know you're safe…" I turned off the talkie and crawling into the building. I rubbed my arm and looked around the dark room, the only lights coming in being that of our torches and the moonlight through the dirty windows. Arthur and Bryn began pushing a large metal unit over to the wall so I stepped aside and watched. "It's silent in here."

"That's a good sign, right?" Sophie asked.

"Not necessarily," Francis replied, sticking close to the girl in place of Scarlet as the later went to make sure the windows were secure. "There could be anything in here but we can't tell if they're quiet. Some Lost can stay silent right up until the moment they... Well, the moment they find you."

"Then what do we do…?"

"We send two people out again to make sure everything is okay," Matthew said. "I'll go check."

"I'll go with you," Arthur replied, walking past me to join my brother. Before anyone could say anything else they had left the room. I sat down on the unit and looked up at the window – it was hard to believe that just a few hours ago I had been trekking through the outer walls in search of a stupid photograph… It seemed like a lifetime had happened since that point. I just hoped that we could find out parents as fast…

Once Arthur and Matthew returned, both of them saying that there really were no Lost in the building, we settled down on the floor and attempted to sleep.

* * *

><p>I had a restless night, but I got enough sleep to feel rested the penultimate time that I awoke. It was still dark outside so I simply turned over and went back to sleep.<p>

The final time I woke it was to the sound of a gunshot.

I sat bolt upright and looked around the room – the other's had woke too, but they were silent.

There were voice down the other end of the corridor… We were not alone.

* * *

><p><strong>Hmmmm.<strong>

**Keeping the updates coming.**


	5. Chapter 5

**The New Age**

**Chapter Five**

I scrambled as quietly as I could to my feet and made my way over to the door, leaning my weight on it to keep it from opening should whoever those people were try to open it. Pressing my ear to the wood, I tried to listen carefully to what they were saying and if they were going to pose a threat to us.

There were at least six people down the end of the hallway, all of them males of varying ages by the sounds of their voices – one sounded like he had barely reached puberty, making me question what kind of group was on the other side of that door. I glanced back at the others, shifting slightly as Arthur moved over and leant on the door too. He looked down at me as he listened carefully too, a nervous expression on his face.

"Where was the fucking exit again?" asked one of the men.

"How the fuck should I know, jackass," replied another. "I didn't come out last time – you did."

"Do you want me to shoot you in the face?" asked the first man, a growl in his tone. I could practically hear the second guy shrink away from him. "I was certainly with a better team last time. Wish I could have taken them with me instead of you fuckers."

"I didn't actually want to come out, you made me," replied the youngest. Man, that kid sounded like he could have been fourteen at the oldest. I heard a slap and a chuckle – it seemed like someone had clapped another on the shoulder.

"You had to learn how to be a man," explained a different guy. "We need to gather up any loners we find and take them to the hideout. If they fight, you kill them, ya hear? They're gonna be dead anyways. We need their supplies and the living always have the best things."

"I… I don't want to kill anyone." Their footsteps were getting ever so closer to our door. "What if they have a kid with them? Are you gonna shoot the kid too?"

"Look, shortstack," said the first guy, and I could hear the youngest get shoved against a wall. Hard. The thud was heavy and echoed down the hall along with the kid's yelp of pain. "You're a kid. You're what? Thirteen? You were skilled enough to not get yourself killed so we let you in. You act like an adult. But if you don't start manning up good and proper-like, you too are gonna get shot between the fucking eyes. So, yes. We can't allow any kids in our base so you shoot the little fuckers in the face before they can cry for their mommy or daddies. Capisce?"

"I capisce…"

"Good."

They were right outside the door. I looked up at Arthur as he moved away from the door and pulled me with him. Everyone else had hidden already I finally noticed, so he pulled me behind a unit where we were awkwardly cramped together. I turned my head to the side to keep an eye on the door.

"Now, I think it's through here."

The door opened slowly. It swung ominously, revealing a balding man that looked as though he could have passed for Jorgen Von Strangle at one stage of his life. God, now was not the time to be thinking about things Dad told me about from his childhood… I watched with Arthur as the six men stepped into the room and looked around. Their eyes fell immediately on the unit on the other side of the room. The one that we had moved to conceal the hole.

"That wasn't covered last time," Jorgen said, grunting a little as he walked over and kicked the unit with such force I had never known to be humanly possible. It had taken a few of us to move that unit over that gap, yet he kicked it as though it were on wheels. "No one has been authorised to even come this far out."

"What does that mean then?" asked the kid. He was skinny boy with mousy hair and cracked glasses – I wondered how he had ever gotten himself mixed up with a person like that. "Did that mean that someone come out here after curfew?"

"Or someone else came in."

"Shit, what if there were survivors…?" asked a tall black guy with a shaved head. He was pretty buff and if the situation wasn't so dire I would definitely tap that. "You heard about the district on the other side of the field! The military fucking K.O'd that place like it was made out of cards! No one was meant to have survived but you know how fucking persistent some people can be… What if they're in the city at the moment."

"Then hopefully one of the patrols would have caught them by now," Jorgen replied. He sniffed slightly, glancing around the room slowly and deliberately. "Unless they're still in here."

Grimacing, I glanced at Arthur and saw that his eyes were wide as he stared out at the guys walking around the room. I followed his gaze and soon realised why he was looking so nervous – the guys walked ever closer to where I could just about see Sophie ducking down behind a counter. She had Aednat with her too, but how they were positioned those punks would shoot Sophie in the face without hesitation…

I couldn't just stand there and let that kid get hurt – it wasn't her fault that this situation was happening, it wasn't fair… Ignoring Arthur's startled motion to pull me back, I sunk down onto my knees, keeping my face awkwardly away from his crotch, and crawled out of the hiding place and over to another unit. The guys hadn't noticed me yet, thankfully, so I continued until I reached the door that they had stupidly left open – I could feel more than just Arthur's eyes on me now and knew that my brother was probably cursing me or being held back by Francis. I would explain it to them when we were all out of there unharmed, but for now I had to think on my feet to keep Sophie safe.

How those guys had talked about kids had convinced me of that she was going to die instantly should they find her and I knew that wherever Scarlet was hidden she would be thinking the same. But she didn't seem as though she had the most tactically thinking mind despite being the second oldest person there – her protective nature made me jump to the conclusion that she would just jump out of her hiding place and lash out at those bastards should they even go anywhere close to Sophie.

We needed a distraction which I was about to provide.

I hid around the doorframe and got to my feet, making it seem as though I had just walked back to the room after wandering around. I made my footsteps heavy and deliberate, stopping in the doorway and looking at the men with false wide eyes. They turned and looked at me, all of their guns and knives pointed in my direction as though I had startled a lone deer. Slowly, I raised my hands to try and convince them that I was no threat, keeping the look of confusion on my face to feign innocence.

"Who the fuck are you?" said Jorgen.

"Uh… My… My name's Amelia…" I replied, thinking that some sort of honesty would keep me on their good sides for the time being. "Sorry… I didn't know there was anyone else here."

"What are you doing here?" asked the kid. He was watching me almost as nervously as I was faking towards him. They must have really scared him to get him to do things like this.

"I was travelling through the city trying to make it to the Zone on the other side," I lied, convincingly too I might add. "I couldn't find anything and I had to hide away from some Lost last night… I just went to look for some food before finding a way out of this place…"

"You're travelling through this place alone?" asked one of the other guys sceptically, eyeing me up and down. "You don't seem the type to have made it this far alone."

"I wasn't alone," I said. My expression was hard. What I was about to say would likely piss off Matt but it was the first thing I could think of. "It was me and my dad but the bastard got himself bit. I had to put him down."

They glanced at one another before taking a few steps closer towards me."Why don't we believe you?"

"Because you seem like misogynistic pigs," I replied before I could stop myself. Jorgen stepped forwards and grabbed the front of my shirt, basically lifting me off of the ground with such force I lost most of the air in my body.

He opened his mouth to speak but as I glanced over his shoulder I smirked as I saw the others come out from their hiding spots in a rush, weapons in hand and charge at the group behind him. Before he could even turn around they had killed four of the guys, sparing the boy who cowered in the corner in a ball. Jorgen set me down quickly and hooked his arm around my neck tightly, keeping a bruising force against my windpipe and cutting off my much needed supply of oxygen. I felt the cool metal of a gun press against my temple but kept my eyes on the others to show them not to be afraid.

I couldn't really tell you what was going on in my mind at that moment – I wasn't really sure whether I would make it out of that place alive. Jorgen was outnumbered but nobody else in the room knew if he was the quickest shot. Scarlet and the group glanced at one another in a way that showed they didn't know whether knives, guns and arrows would help at that moment. I was unnervingly calm, that much I can remember. Everything about that happened in such a surreal turn of events it seemed like it had happened in slow motion.

Unable to make out what Jorgen was saying to them, I winced as started to pull me away from the group. I kept my eyes on them stoically. I wasn't trying to be brave or a hero; I just didn't have any emotions in me at that moment that I could convey properly on my face. I couldn't scream, I couldn't shout, and I barely had enough oxygen in my system to move myself. The gun pressed to my temple didn't really help my state either… I wasn't sure if I wanted saving or not – did I really need it? Could I actually save myself?

I knew that I was risky. I knew that I was a hazard to myself. I knew that the life that I had been born into had made me into something that I was sure wasn't all that human – but it had also made me into some mentally indestructible.

Finally emotion crossed my face. I smirked. It was a simple expression, just a simple smirk but it seemed to bring the others back to their senses as they realised that I was forming some kind of plan. I didn't have a plan though. Not properly, at least. I was just going to wing it. I didn't need some hero to come in and swoop me away from the bad man pointing the gun at me – this was the worst situation that I had ever been in before but it certainly wasn't the first time that someone had pointed a gun at me.

I tilted my head down quickly and bit the skin of wrist hard, digging my teeth in sharply to pierce the skin and shoved his other arm up just as he pulled the trigger. It was good timing, the bullet shooting through the ceiling rather than my head. I elbowed him in the ribs, moving away from him quickly as he hit the ground. I kicked the gun out of his hand and drew my knife on him, letting him get a good look at it before I shoved it through his forehead and into his brain.

"No one choke holds me," I spat at him, pulling my knife out of his head and wiping it off on his clothes. I turned and looked around at the others, keeping my knife out. "We need to get moving. No doubt there are going to be more assholes like them so we need to get out of here before shit really hits the fan."

"Won't they think they were killed by the Lost?" suggested Sophie as we all started to run down the corridor.

"With stab wounds through their faces? No, no they'll know they were murdered and they will be hunting the people that did it," I replied, pausing at the back door and opening it slowly. I checked outside carefully, looking every which way I could before motioning that it was okay to come outside. It was truly a sight that they should all witness.

I walked through the grass that had grown through the cracks in the tarmac, folding my arms and taking a moment to admire the amazing view that was presented before us. It literally was an urban jungle; nature really was taking back the world we humans had claimed as our own so many years ago. It was impressive seeing the vines and other plants crawling their ways up the sides of buildings, the roots of some of them hooked into the foundations and causing them to crumble before us. Nothing seemed stable and we were beneath the large building that had literally toppled over and was now leaning against an equally unstable structure.

Letting them have a moment to pause, I walked across the street into the first building that I could find. Opening the door quietly, I turned on my torch as there was nothing but pitch-blackness inside. I kept myself quiet as I shut the door again; my breath caught in my throat as I leant against it and looked back at the others. Scarlet walked over to me with a concerned expression on her face, one of her gloved hands finally rubbing a slight smear of blood off of her cheek.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Lost…" I said quietly. "Lots and lots of Lost…"

"What?" she blinked, moving me aside and quietly opening the door herself. I saw her freeze before shutting the door again – there were hordes of them inside that building. I didn't understand how there could be so many but that meant our job had just gotten that little bit more difficult – now we had to deal with Lost as well as the militants that seemed to be roaming around. "So… Going in there is a bad idea…"

"You think?" I said, walking back over to the group. "We need to go over there." I pointed to the building on the furthest side of the square. The one that had toppled over. "We need to get into that building and through it to get to the other side so that we can make some distance towards the Golden Gate Bridge."

"What about that kid inside?" Arthur asked. "We just left him there with a bunch of corpses…"

"We can't do anything about him," I replied, folding my arms as he looked at me incredulously. "We can't! We could die whatever we choose! He could go back to his people and be fine, but he will talk about what happened to his team and tell them about us. We die if they find us. We take him with us and he betrays us. We die! He may seem like a little pansy but there is nothing that we can do out here for him. Let him find his people. He's armed and more so than we are now that his team are dead. He'll be fine."

"…Whatever," Arthur snapped, walking away from us towards the building. I rolled my eyes and followed with the others. I could tell that they were still shook up from what had happened in there, but there wasn't any time to stop and talk about our feelings that regular human beings. That hadn't been the case for a long time before this shit had happened so I wasn't going to start any time soon. I don't know how cushy their lives had been before coming to my district, but there was never really any time to talk to my family about my feelings. Dad and Uncle Louis would leave so often that it was like living with ghosts, Matthew and Francis were always there but they just seemed to get annoyed at the sight of me so I never talked to them. I took out my feelings on the Lost I found out on missions, deciding to climb to the highest peaks of the most dilapidated buildings and look out and imagine what the world around me would have looked like forty years ago.

We reached an area that looked as though it could have been some sort of garage door. It was a dirty silver colour, a chain on the outside to pull the grate up – it must have been a delivery entrance. There was a panel on the side of the building. Arthur pulled it open and pressed the big green button inside but nothing happened.

"This must have been the main way of getting the door opened," he said. "But there's no power. The chain must have been a backup." He walked over to it and examined it a bit, crouching and pulling out a pin that was jamming the gears near the bottom. "That should do it…"

Ryan and Bryn started to work on pulling the chain up but found out soon enough that it wouldn't open very high. Something was still causing a problem with the gears, the chain getting stuck not even half way off the ground. There was a large enough gap for us to be able to crawl through into whatever was waiting on the other side of that opening. Not wanting Sophie to crawl into something dangerous, I got down my knees and went to crawl inside only to have a hand land on my shoulder – it was Aednat.

"You had your share of the danger today… Don't put yourself at risk to save us like that two times in a row, yeah?" she said, smiling a little. "I'll go in."

"Are you sure…?"

"Of course I am," she said, giving me a thumbs up. She got onto her knees and crawled into the gap, a short pausing happening before she tried to speak to us – her voice kept breaking with each word though. "G-guys… T-This i-is… F-Fuck…"

Not liking the sound of that whatsoever, I crawled in after her and gasped at the sight before us. There were mounds and mounds of bodies of vary states of decay – they weren't Lost either… They were regular people, some of the stripped bare and left to show off what little they had… There were bruises over their skin as well as slices from knives or wounds from bullets. After us, the rest of the ground joined in the horror that we had discovered, all of us rising to our feet unable to keep our eyes off of the gore. I wasn't sure if it was just some form of morbid curiosity but I knew one thing for sure that I was absolutely terrified of whoever was capable of doing something like this.

And we could have joined them in exactly same way if we hadn't beaten those guys…

I pointed to the other side of the room towards the door, leading the way through the pathway of bodies until we reached it and left them to their endless slumber.

"That was horrible…" said Sophie quietly, Bryn keeping a tight arm around his baby sister. I glanced at Matthew, who was still not looking at me, and frowned a little as he kept his eyes firmly on the ground.

"Let's keep moving," I sighed, letting the others walk on ahead. I got a little surprise as Arthur tagged along near the back with me. He hadn't seemed very happy with me earlier but I could see he was tense; his hands were balled into tight fists, one of which was gripping the strap of his backpack so hard his knuckles were white. "Are you okay, Arthur?"

"That could have been us," he replied. His eyes were trained on the floor. "Those people back there. How they were left like that to rot, naked and butchered… You were right about leaving that kid behind… If that was the work of the people he was with… I shudder to think what could have happened…"

"I didn't like making that decision…" I muttered. "But that did hit the reality right home to me too… If things were different I might have helped him, but I couldn't take that risk…"

"I understand now," Arthur said. He finally looked at me so I smiled at him a little and touched his arm. He glanced at my hand then smiled back at me. We looked round as Sophie fell back and joined us. She had calmed down and had been released from Bryn. Arthur and I smiled at her, shifting so she would be walking between us. I could see questions in Arthur's eyes as he looked at me over the top of his sister's head but I didn't know what they were. I'd let him ask later. We walked along the corridors in silence, the death that hung with in the walls of this building seeming to explain the decaying structure ever further. I could hear the creaking of the building fighting against our weight as we climbed staircases and walked through room after room trying to find a way out that wouldn't kill us until one creak sounded too close for comfort.

I looked above us and screamed, grabbing Sophie. Arthur yelled and Sophie screamed as we hopped backwards. We shielded her as part of the ceiling fell down where we had just been standing. We fell backwards and covered our faces, the others shouting in surprise. I coughed as dust floated through the air like heavy clouds, waving my hand in front of my face to look at the large pile of debris that had landed in front of us.

"SOPHIE! ARTHUR! AMELIA!"

"SHIT ARE YOU OKAY?!"

"TALK TO US!"

We could hear them screaming and shouting for us, but none of us could speak for a moment, the dust too thick in air. I tried my best to reply.

"We're fine…! Just…"

"We can't get back to you…" came Ryan's voice. "You have to find a way round to join us on this side!"

"Shit… Shh, Ryan! I can hear something…" said Francis.

"You guys keep going, we'll find you!" I said, coughing as I inhaled some dust. I looked round at Arthur who was cradling a very startled Sophie. There was a cut on his cheek and both their faces were filthy with dust. I dared not think what I looked like. "We need to keep moving somehow…"

"We can't go back…" Arthur said. I shook my head.

"That room will have to do," I said, looking at how the debris had landed. "Looks like there may be a hole now."

We stood up on shaking legs and made our way into the room beside us, ducking under the metal framing that had fallen through the ceiling and down through a hole in the floor. It had led us into a totally new area, a corridor that led to the stairs on the other end of the hall.

However, we should have looked before we dropped.

There were shouts from behind us and before we could turn around, we were grabbed. We screamed and shouted as loud as we could as some attempt at warning the others before cloths were forced over our faces and everything went black.

* * *

><p>I wasn't sure how long I had been out cold – I could have actually been dead for as much as I knew. My head was swimming and light wasn't hitting my eyes at all. It was as though I was shrouded in darkness. I couldn't even tell if my eyes were open or not…<p>

I felt sick and dizzy. Was this motion sickness? Was I moving or not?

Groaning as a jolt went through my body, my eyes shot open and I sat upright far too quickly. Holding my head with one hand, I slumped back down on one arm and looked around the room. I could see Arthur and Sophie next to, only just waking too. But it was only when I took another glance around the room, my eyes starting to focus better, that I noticed that we weren't alone.

There were five other people with us: a girl with auburn hair and amber eyes, a girl with brown hair and green eyes, a guy with dark brown hair, purple eyes and glasses, a boy no older than Sophie with similar hair to the first girl and the same green eyes as the second, and a girl that looked the same age as Francis and Scarlet with long silver hair and red eyes.

The green eyed girl looked at me disinterestedly, her arms folded across her chest as she looked at me through the corner of her eyes. "Welcome to the slaughter house."

* * *

><p><strong>Building up the characters! Making them develop! Doing all this shit to keep the story real! Woop!<strong>


	6. Chapter 6

**The New Age**

**Chapter Six**

It took me a moment to register what the girl had said to me but when it did finally sink in, I narrowed my eyes and looked at her harshly. Sitting up properly to show her that I was not in the mood to be fucked around with, I stared at her unblinkingly until the girl smirked a little. Now that I was getting a better look at her, I could see that she looked scared behind that hardened exterior – the first girl did too… Hell, in one way or another they all looked somewhat scared.

Choosing not to respond to her for a moment, I examined the room that we were in and realised that it was more like a kennel or a jail cell. There were bars in place of one of the four walls, letting us look into what looked like a large industrial kitchen. There was a bulky metal table in the middle of the room that looked as though it would be used for preparing meat and I was a little anxious about the amount of blood that was still dripping on to the floor from the surface.

I looked back at the strange group that we had joined and stood up. "What the hell do you mean by slaughter house?"

"Just that," replied the green eyed girl. I now noticed the heavy Italian accent. "There were two more people in here before us. They made us watch as they fucking sliced the bastards open over there."

"These people are cannibals?" asked Arthur, keeping his arm around Sophie protectively.

"No," said the silver haired girl, getting to her feet too. It seemed that she was a lot more comfortable around us now that she knew that we weren't a threat. "They're just fucking psychos. It's their way of making sure these people will never come back – they go out and burn the corpses easier cos they're all chopped up!"

"Would you shut the fuck up?!" shouted the oldest guy, glaring at the silver haired girl. He glanced over at Sophie who was watching with such wide eyes I thought she would start crying at any moment. I stepped forwards and looked at them all.

"Sounds like we're gonna have to work together to get out of this shithole alive," I said. "So, we had better get to know each other better damned quickly. I'm Amelia. This is Arthur and Sophie, and we were separated from our group which contains my brother and cousin and their brothers and sisters."

"I'm Maria," said the silver haired girl. "This is Roderick, Lovina, Feliciana and Marcello. We got separated from our group too – my younger brother, Roderick's girlfriend and Lovina's boyfriend. We'll be next so we've got to hurry…"

"How long have those guys been gone?" I asked, walking over to the bars and looking out into the room. I felt uneasy, like they were about to walk in at any moment. I didn't like being so out of control – I liked knowing what I was going to do and not having to worry about being killed when I did it. Often I would go out by myself or with other people and it had never ended in kidnap and threats of murder. I moved over to the section that seemed to be the doorway, shaking the bars a little to test just how strong the lock was – it seemed pretty sturdy but not unbreakable.

I was starting to formulate many plans on how to get all of out of there – some of them were pretty stupid, but the one thing that kept on popping into my head was finding a way to pick the lock. I could see our belongings on the other side of the room, and I mean all of our belongings – even the other groups' backpacks were over there it seemed. They were so close and yet so far away and it sucked – it was like they were torturing us further by showing us the things that we so desperately needed before they came in and murdered us in cold blood.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Lovina, walking over to me so that she could better see what I could. Her eyes followed mine until they too rested upon our belongings. "It's no good… We can't reach any of that stuff… I had a fucking lock pick in my pack… We could have used that but no. Those fuckers kept it all in the distance…"

"We don't need a lock pick to pick a lock though," I said, glancing at her through the corner of my eyes. She raised her eyebrows a little before looking around at the group, thinking through what I was trying to imply.

"Feli…" she muttered, her eyes widening. "Fuck, why didn't we think of this before?! Feli! You have hairpins right? You have them in your hair at the moment!"

"Si…" replied the younger girl, looking between us apprehensively. I could understand her nervousness – we were strangers to her and suddenly her sister was teaming up with us. I would be sceptical too. "Why do you need them?"

"Because we can pick the lock!" Arthur said, grinning brightly as he caught up to the plan.

"That's a start," Maria said, folding her arms and raising her eyebrows. "But that still leaves of with the biggest problem. How the fuck are we going to get out of here without being shot between the eyes or stabbed in the back?"

"We don't go charging out of here all guns blazing," I retorted, getting a little sick of her attitude already – I knew that she was just thinking of her group, I was doing exactly the same thing, but we needed to work as a team if we were ever going to get out of this place alive. We needed to remain quiet, sneak our way through the building until we found our families and friends. Arguing over petty little things was going to get us nowhere. "We just have to keep quiet and listen out for those guys – we take care of the ones we can't avoid and we just go around the ones that we can. We don't cause a noise, we don't kill anyone that we don't need to and we just keep moving. Understood?"

"How old are you again?" asked Roderich suddenly. I looked at him indignantly.

"My age has nothing to do with this!"

"I was just going to say that you seem younger than that blonde guy over there and yet you seem to have a steady head on your shoulders," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders. Well, now I felt like an ass for yelling at him – but surely he should realise that you never ask a girl how old she is!

Maria sighed and watched as Feliciana untangled one of the hairpins from her auburn locks and handed it to Lovina, the older sister walking back over to the door and sticking the pin into the key hole. We were all silent in both anticipation and as a ruse to listen out for those fuckers should they decide to come back before we get out of the room. I had never really been able to pick a lock before so watched interestedly as Lovina's face contorted in concentration, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth a little as she stared adamantly at the little challenge before her.

I was suddenly very alert and aware of the situation that we had landed in, the fact that I had once again been thrust into a position of leadership that I didn't want but seemed so natural in. Matthew would likely say that it was because I was a bossy person that I fell into the role so perfectly – and for once, if I got back to him in one piece, I wouldn't argue with him. I just wanted to get everyone back to the people we wanted to be with in one piece. No one was going to die in our new little group, we weren't going to split up or be separated. We were going to get to our people and make our way out of this city. I was going to see my father again, and my uncle. I was going to see my new friends and live on in another part of the country or a totally new one altogether. Everything was going to be okay. No one was going to kill any one of the people that I cared about today.

The clicking of a tumbler brought me back into the real world, drawing me from my thoughts with a glorious sound of partial freedom. Lovina stood upright and looked at us all with a large grin on her face, Feliciana and Marcello bouncing over to her and laughing quietly at her little victory. I was proud of her too; I wouldn't have been able to do anything like that. Without another word, just simple gestures, we snuck out of the prison and over to the counters where our belongings were. Each of us grabbed our own bags and took out a weapon just in case. I moved over to the doorway and pressed myself flat against the wall on the right hand side, glancing around the frame and down the very long corridor.

Everything outside was silent, nothing was moving. There seemed to be no sign of life whatsoever so I rotated myself out of the room and motioned to the others to follow me quietly. It seemed as though this really was an old office block – one of those ones I used to see on old pamphlets that littered the streets. The doors were open on each of the little blocks, but nothing was inside except for a mess of furniture and paper. The others glanced inside as we went along, letting me focus on guiding us through the corridor and listening out for the militants – they were keeping an eye out for supplies that we could use, whether that be food or ammunition to keep us safe should the need arrive.

We soon reached the end of the corridor and met a set of double doors which I slowly pulled open and looked through. We had managed to find the back stairwell of the building, one that hopefully bypassed all the crazy fuckers that could possibly be roaming around… I just hoped that there were no Lost down there… I led the group down the first flight, cringing as every step were took made the old structure complained about the added weight. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until I heard clicking the floor below us.

Groaning internally, I motioned for everyone to stay absolutely silent as I moved over to the doors for that floor and quietly pushed them open. Someone was stood at the end of the corridor holding a gun, their back to us so they were unaware that we were even entering the corridor. Maria held her gun out ready to shoot him but I put my hand on it and gave her a glare that told her not to even think about pressing the trigger. They followed me as I snuck down the corridor, ducking into one of the rooms – it was a large meeting area, adjoining rooms side by side with doors for easy access and tables large enough for us to hide under should we need to. I could hear movement outside the room we had entered so ducked under the large meeting table and listened, glancing at the others as they spread out underneath the table too.

"When are we going to kill those fucking Tourists?" grumbled one of the men, his voice weedy and nasal.

"Archie said that we couldn't just yet," replied a deeper voiced man. "We still need to track down those other fuckers… Can't believe they gave Joey the slip…"

"I can, Joey's a fucking moron," replied the first man.

"True…" said the second. "That red haired chick seemed pretty tough… I want to take her out myself. That bitch killed Alfie."

"Alfie was being a dick," said the first. "He basically asked for it charging at her like a fucking moron. He even screamed as he ran! What a cock!"

"They're a big group now too, though," continued the second. "They teamed up with the others from that first lot we locked in there. That Spanish guy can really swing an axe, ya know…"

"I know…"

Listening to them as they continued to walk further down the corridor, close to the area we had come in, I waited until they were a decent distance away before continuing through the other meeting rooms. The stupid fuckers had left their supplies unattended so we stole some food and ammunition, anything that we could stuff into our backpacks easily before heading back out into the corridor, through the other set of doors and into the main part of the building.

We were definitely on an upper floor, but we had managed to find an over grown atrium – nature was inside the building and was claiming the area back as much as it could. It was scary and impressive, the sheer force of nature being presented to us enough to make us stop and stare for a moment. We hid behind one of the thick branches that was crawling its way through the atrium as we heard talking though, holding our weapons ready just in case. Taking a deep breath, I looked over at the door on the other side of the room and let my eyes widen.

"Ryan!" Sophie exclaimed, not listening to any of us as she ran from her hiding spot. I followed after her, hugging Matthew tightly as I reached him. It was true. They were real, they were here with the other group, all of us hugging and clutching to our loved ones as tightly as we could. Matthew's eyes were shut tightly as he pressed his face to the top of my head, his arms wrapped around my torso tightly. I glanced up at Francis and smiled as he put his hand on my arm, a look of sheer relief spreading across his dirty face.

"What's going on?" asked the Spanish guy, his arms tightly around Lovina who had her head on his chest.

"We're escaping as a group, that's what," I replied.

"We got locked in this room behind bars, Antonio," Lovina said, looking up at him. "They killed people in front of us… Chopped them up into little pieces and took them to be burned… We were gonna be next but then Amelia there thought about picking the lock and Feliciana's hairpins finally came in handy!"

"You guys we really need to move," Maria said, looking behind us. I looked round too as I heard shouting from above – they had realised that we weren't in the cell anymore.

"I agree with Red Eyes," Francis said.

"My name's Maria," scoffed the girl, Francis rolling his eyes a little.

"Let's just get out of here!" Arthur groaned, making sure that Sophie was near him before setting off back in the way they came. We followed after them, heading down the corridor and through a side door – further stairs awaited us which was ran down quickly as we heard the militants shouting get louder and louder behind us.

* * *

><p>Thirty minutes of fleeing later we had managed to get out of the building and across the town – we stuck together as a large group, covering all the ground we could to look for supplies. We explained to them about our plan to get to the bridge, and they agreed to come with us.<p>

However as we got to the bridge we soon discovered that it was littered with abandoned cars that had little to no fuel, very little supplies and not a sign of our parents anywhere. I took out the walkie talkie and tried to contact them, waiting and waiting until finally the device crackled in my hand.

"Amie?"

"Dad, where the fuck are you?" I said. There were a lot of conflicting emotions shooting through my brain at hearing him speak. I was relieved that he truly was alive but at the same time I was furious with him for leaving us in that situation.

"We've had to move on… We're heading for the border. Follow the bridge across and just keep going… Head for the border too and we will find you."

"Sure you will," I replied, waiting for a reply that never came. I growled, frustrated, and stuffed the damned thing back into my backpack. The others were watching me nervously and worriedly but I took a deep breath and calmed. "Come on… Let's keep moving."

"Why didn't he answer you?" Francis pondered. "This all seems really strange to me…"

"I agree," Scarlet said. "We've not heard from our parents, your father is acting suspiciously…"

"I don't know what's going on," I said, rubbing my temple. I felt tired and drained. Sitting down on the bonnet of an abandoned car, I took my flask out of my backpack and sipped some of the warm water from it. I grimaced at the taste and stuffed it back into my pack. "Something bigger is going on here. I just can't think what."

"Why didn't they wait for us?" asked Bryn. He sat down beside me and looked around at the group. We were far away from that building now, taking a break would do us a world of good and there was plenty of objects for us to hide behind should we need to. "Look at this place and think about how quickly we actually got here. A day. It's taken us a single day and if we hadn't run into trouble it would have taken us less time… Why didn't they wait?"

"By the sounds of it they're already over half way across the city," Matthew said. "And they've not exactly told us which border to head for… The border reaches the ocean on all sides except for behind us, right?"

"Right…"

"So look," he said. He pulled out his atlas and laid it on the car between Bryn and I. He always had that atlas with him. Matthew opened the pages until we got to a page on San Francisco. Everyone gathered round. "That spot there. Fort Point. That is where we are right now. Out there to our left are three islands. Alcatraz, Treasure, and Angel."

"They wouldn't be over there," Arthur said, shaking his head. "We've heard the rumours about those places."

"Alcatraz has been overrun by the military," Scarlet said. "It's fortified and has only one easy entrance which is always guarded. It's their main base so they have full view of both sides of the city."

"Angel Island is infested with Lost," Ryan said. We looked at him. "Mum told me they were planning to eradicate it at some point. It's a Lost nest."

"And there's been no sign of life whatsoever from Treasure Island," Bryn said. "It's a ghost town."

"You lot sure do know a lot about a city you've not been in long," I said, raising my eyebrows.

"Mum and Dad always made us do some research on areas we were entering," Arthur said, leaning next to me. I glanced over my shoulder at him. "Even if it's just a miniscule amount like where the hotspots for info are or Lost nests."

"Fair enough."

"So we know that those islands in this district are out," Matthew concluded. "But that leaves the other side of the bridge. When we get across we're straight into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. We're on Route 101 at the moment so we have a lot of options."

"Which are?" asked Roderich.

"1. We head north along Route 101 and make our way to the border at Marin City," Matthew said. "That's the official access point to the city. The fence spans from the east to west at that point. It's open access from that point onwards. There's the Tamalpais-Homestead Valley which has been totally abandoned due to a Lost infestation. That's where that raid four years ago happened."

"I remember that," I muttered. "It was horrifying…"

"Hmmm," Matthew hummed. "From that point is the state park. It's all unmanned until we reach the next access point up in Corte Madera."

"What's the next option?" asked Marcello.

"2. We head west through Golden Gate NRA and check out the border there. It's roughly unguarded because it's on the ocean. There have been rumours of camps being set up for stragglers down near Rodeo Lagoon. There's a Marine Mammal Centre there as well as other buildings. Everything just spans along well. Follow the roads well enough we may even be able to reach Muir Beach. There's an Inn there that Dad said he and Mom stayed in before…"

"Muir Beach…" muttered Ludwig. "I've heard of it… It's got its own borders… They've totally fortified it and made it a colony."

"Would we be let in though…?" Feliciana pointed out.

"What's option three?" I sighed.

" head east down to Horseshoe Bay and see if there are any boats left… They may well be there because the Bay Area Discovery Museum has become a housing area run by the Rebels."

"Mum and Dad may have gone there!" Sophie said, looking at us all.

Scarlet shook her head. "No… No, it was overrun remember… Lost attacked it and then the Militants got involved… We could possibly head from one of the docks to another without passing Sommerville Road but there's always a watching from the old Yacht Club building."

"So all the options have flaws," I groaned. I felt a hand on my shoulder so smiled over it a little at Arthur. "It's going to get dark soon so we need to find shelter no matter what… So let's cross the bridge…"

"And then what?" asked Lovina. "We're all in this now… What way should we go?"

After a vote, we came to the conclusion that we should head westwards. With the thoughts of new homes being built and older buildings being converted into colonies and rest points, we figured somehow that direction would be the safest of our options. Dad hadn't been very descriptive in where the border he wanted us to go was, after all. We kept on walking across the bridge, taking whatever supplies that we could get our hands on. It was awkward travelling with such a large group now, but we had to do whatever we could to survive…

Soon we found that the part of the city that we had entered had been totally overrun by nature, the trees and greenery claiming the land once more as its own. Homes remained plus other buildings but everything was so green it was incredible – all the homes had been taken over by the growing forest and nothing seemed habitable. With heavy hearts we left the main road and found a dirt track to follow. We continued westwards through the dry fields. This was a problem as the sun was slowly starting to set and the Lost were starting to get more and more active. We headed through a bunch of thick set tress until we found a clear, a peculiar gap within the hills and blinked at the sight before us.

In the distance was a wall – one of the structures the military had built to try and separate the woodlands before they were completely taken over by Lost - but before it was a ranch. It was untouched and alone in the middle of a field – large and beautiful and just what we were looking for.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm really enjoying going back into this AU again. I was pretty downtrodden with it before but I've been enjoying looking back into it. I have another story idea I want to work on soon. It's similar to one of my first fan fictions – Lifeline – so it would be as a memorial-like thing because it's nearly four years old.<strong>

**See you all soon. **


	7. Chapter 7

**The New Age**

**Chapter Seven**

Though this seemed to be the salvation we had been looking for, the group remained calm as we drew ever nearer to the large ranch. It was stunningly beautiful, in such a well-kept condition that it had to be recently built. It was two stories with the additional layers of attic and basement, the outer walls panelled and painted a soft pink colour. The tone was like a peach but softer and less harsh. The windows were covered by white netting on the inside and the front door was just beyond a large porch with a swing seat and pure white railings. In the background was an outdoor paddock – but I couldn't see any horses – and beyond that was a bright red barn with white awnings and an open door. There didn't seem to be any life anywhere and it was so startling out of place that every alarm bell in my head was ringing.

This couldn't be safe. After everything that we had gone through so far, this one thing seemed so out of the ordinary that it just couldn't be. But as I looked around at the hope starting to etch across everyone's dirty faces, I couldn't help but let that feeling infect me too. I pulled my knife from my belt and held it securely as I walked up the steps towards the front door. I glanced at the others as they split off into smaller groups to go investigate round the other sides of the house, the paddock and the barn. We had to make sure that there was no one around to spoil this for us. We had to make sure that we weren't intruding on someone's home…

Arthur was right behind me. I looked over my shoulder at him and nodded. Stepping forwards, I took hold of the door handle as he got his crossbow ready and pointed towards the door. I turned the knob. It was unlocked. Slowly, I let the door swing open and tapped on the white doorframe. Ducking out of the way, I waited for the all clear from Arthur before proceeding into the house. It was beautiful inside but a mess at the same time. It looked as though whoever had been here before us had left in a hurry but I couldn't for the life of me tell why. We wandered into the living room first. There was a large photo above the mantel piece. A man stood behind a woman and three young girls. He seemed tall, had a thick brown beard and a mop of dark hair. His eyes were blue behind the nerdiest glasses I had ever seen and he wore a checked shirt underneath an green argyle jumper. The woman was plump with bright red hair and big looping earrings. She was bright and happy, a large smile on her red painted lips and her chest was practically heaving out of the blue dress she was wearing. One girl seemed to be around my age. She sat beside her sisters and smiled warmly, her arms around the younger two who appeared to be twins. She had red hair like her mother and her father's blue eyes. Her t-shirt had a logo of a band I'd never heard of. The younger girls had brown hair like their father and grey eyes like their mother. They were hugging their older sister. They looked like they could be five years old at most…

I looked away from the photo. It was such a happy family portrait. It was so faded and covered with dust though. This house was clearly older than we had first imagined. I wondered whether the family had survived this long. The five years olds would be nearly fifty now. The girl my age would be nearly seventy. Their parents…

Arthur put his arm around my shoulders gently and easily. I glanced up at him and saw him staring at the portrait too. It seemed like he was thinking the same as me. I forgot myself for a moment and leant against him. It was comforting to have contact with someone and not have it be a punch or grab or throttle. I liked Arthur. After a moment he let me go. I smiled with half my mouth and continued to look around the room, only to discover there was nothing more to it. We left the room and heard movement in the kitchen. Arthur glanced round the doorframe but it turned out to be Lovina, Antonio and Marcello snooping around. We made our way quietly up the stairs. After checking in each room and in the attic, we came to the conclusion that the house was well and truly deserted.

Arthur and I made our way back down into the kitchen. The group was converging on that point so we were stuck in the doorway watching as they piled tons of supplies onto the large oval table in the adjoining dining room. I was speechless. There were crates of bottled water, canned food, bread and even some meats that seemed to have been taken away from somewhere cold. I glanced at Arthur and saw his eyes widened. It had been so long since we'd eaten…

"Where did you find all that?" I asked. Scarlet looked up from food and grinned at me.

"We found half this stuff out in the barn and a lot of the food was already in the house," she said. "There's no sign of anyone anywhere! We may have finally found somewhere to stay for a while."

"It seems that way," I nodded. "We've found no one inside the house and whoever has been in here is long gone. They seem to have left in a hurry."

"Are we going to stay here?" asked Sophie. There was a moment of silence as the group seemed to think as one before large grins spread across our faces. Sophie smiled brilliantly and clapped her hands together, laughing and bouncing on the balls of feet. "Yay! No more running for a while!"

"We can all finally relax," Marcello smiled. He gave Sophie a sideways glance and grinned at her. She blushed a little and smiled back. I sensed a potential romance blossoming there. I looked at all the food on the table and took mental stock of what we had. There was enough to see us all through the winter and should we need to run it was easily transportable if we all took a little each. The meat was another story altogether. I knew that if it wasn't stored correctly then we could all get ill so I made that point clear and Francis and Scarlet took it back out to the barn. We all grabbed one item of food each to have as sustenance for the time being before putting it all back in a safe place.

* * *

><p>Night had fallen and dawn had risen and finally I could say that I had a decent night's sleep. Everyone looked so refreshed the next morning. It was like things were returning to some form of normality. I had found Francis and Scarlet sat out on the front porch together with cups of water, both of them watching the sunrise as it painted the sky so many glorious colours. I had kept my being there a secret. They seemed to be getting on very well.<p>

I tried to find Matthew but it turned out that he had gone for a walk with Maria. I was surprised but at the same time I hadn't really been expecting Matthew to sit around with me. He had his own life and it was apparent that I wasn't a major factor in it. Depressed slightly, I wandered through the building and made my way back upstairs. I pulled the ladder down for the attic and climbed up through the hatch. The light was starting to pour in through the large circle window on the right hand side of the room and now that I was actually looking, I discovered that the attic had at one point in time been converted into a bedroom.

There was a bed on the far side of the room, the light purple covers layered with dust and the white woodwork of the framed chipped and peeling. Under the window was a dressing table with a small rectangular mirror on it. The desk was white like the bedframe and in a very similar condition. A music box sat open on desk, the red velvet caked in the same dirt as the rest of the room. Posters of bands and celebrities long gone dotted the walls, and on the left wall beside the bed was a cork board covered in polaroid photos. I wandered over to it and looked at them carefully. A lot of them featured the same family from the portrait in the living room. There were shots of the teenaged girl by a swimming pool with friends, a few of her with a boy with black hair and handsome smile, his arms around her waist and his head leaning down on hers. There were shots of the landscape, her family… This girl led a very happy life before the world came crumbling to a halt.

I looked at a large white bookshelf – again the paint was very distressed – and took note of all the books this girl had collected. _The Great Gatsby_, _Wuthering Heights_, _A Game of Thrones_, _Harry Potter_, _Skulduggery Pleasant_… The list went on and on. I wondered just how many she had managed to get through. How many she had loved, what were her favourites, how many she had read over and over until she could recite them line for line and letter for letter. They too were covered in dust, but I carefully pulled _Throne of Glass_ from the shelf and flicked through it. Setting it down, I turned to the desk and started to look through the drawers.

Some held clothes – my size so I decided to take a few practical items to wash up so I had more than just my two outfits – whilst others held little mementos from trips and holidays. There were various cameras and memory cards, batteries which had leaked into the desk and gave off a pungent smell. Another was full of notebooks and pens. I took a pen and a scrap of paper from one of the pads and scribbled on it. It worked. I tried another and pocketed the two working pens. Then I noticed something peculiar.

_Diary 2014_

Wow.

I carefully pulled it out of the draw and flicked through it. It full right to the end of the book. This girl had written about her life for an entire year. I paused on one page and decided to read.

_Halloween sucks. I don't understand how people find it amusing to go around dressed up as monsters and aliens and random stuff just to get candy. You can go to a store and buy candy every single day of the year, why is this day so freaking special._

_Mom says it's a fun day and I try to keep a smile on my face for Frankie and Alex's sake but it's getting harder and harder to every year. I'm seventeen for crying out loud. I need to grow up but they keep on insisting I join in with these childish games. We're not even that close to anywhere they can trick or treat! NO ONE CAN COME TO US EITHER! We are in the middle of fucking nowhere!_

_-sigh- I'm going to stop complaining. Dad should be back from his trip tonight. The game he and his buddies are developing is going to be amazing. I'm so proud of him. That is something Halloween-y I can get on board with. A fucking supreme horror video game. And Dad said he took my advice too! A decent plot, no tropes. Genuine psychological horror to rattle the senses! He said they're gonna give me some credit for helping with ideas!_

_Okay, I'm back. I had to pop out for a bit because Jon showed up and started tapping on my window. God that boy makes me despair sometimes but the gesture is… He and I snuck out to the barn. I wouldn't normally do something like that but he was there and he wasn't dressed up as a monster or anything. He'd come from the other side of the bridge to see me… Neither of us planned to do what we did and he was so red afterwards. I don't regret it. I love him._

"What are you reading?"

I jumped and turned around quickly to see Arthur climbing up into the room with me. He tilted his head curiously and looked at the book in my hands. "I found a diary," I explained. "From that girl in the photo downstairs. This was her room. She was talking about Halloween and… and boys and sex and… Everything just seemed so different to how it is now."

"I can't even begin to imagine what life could have been like if I'd lived forty years ago…" Arthur said, stepping closer to me. I opened the diary and let him look inside. It felt a little rude prying into this girl's life but so much time had passed since then it didn't seem to matter. Like this diary was just like the other books on her shelves. "She makes it sound so simple."

"I know… We see monsters every day and she was complaining about one day out of three hundred and sixty five."

Arthur chuckled. "There's that," he said. "But I was talking about family and love and friendship." He flicked through the pages. "She talks about her friends and days out and school. And this boy, Jon, shows up a lot. You can tell she loved him."

"I wondered if they ended up together when it all happened…" I muttered. "Or if they…"

"They could have found other people. The world is a mysterious place and we've only began to scratch the surface again."

I looked up at him. Arthur smiled down at me. I felt myself reddening. "I'm… I'm really glad I met you, Arthur. All of you."

"Me too."

"Do you think we'll ever find our parents?"

"I… I don't know… I hope we do, but the odds of that happening are slim… They sounded like they were in trouble but we have no idea where they could be. For the time it's taken us to travel on foot since our last contact with them they could have been taken or travelled willingly in any which direction on foot or by car or train or boat…"

"What are you planning to do?"

"Make sure my family stays safe," Arthur said, walking over to the round window. He peered through the dirty glass, the sunlight causing him to shadow and glow around the edges. I joined him and tried to catch his eye.

"You must be used to this though, right? Travelling and stuff."

"Actually… Mum and Dad never really take us out on missions unless it's absolutely necessary…" he muttered. I blinked. "We have a home… It's in New England in an area kind of like this one outside of the military controlled zones. We normally stay there but this time Mum and Dad had insisted we join them…"

"But you said before…"

"We'd just met and needed to seem capable in front of someone who had ventured out alone and seemed very capable of killing us if given the chance." Arthur glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes and I flushed red as I realised he meant me.

"I wouldn't have…"

"If it were you or us on our first meeting, you would have to get to your family again."

He had me there but I didn't like it. I was getting to know them now, I couldn't think about wanting to kill them. It felt so wrong. Arthur's expression softened as he saw my startled look. It relaxed me somewhat.

"Then… you have an end game," I said. "You have a plan! You have a goal! Arthur, you guys can get home! You guys can be safe!" I grinned. "You can get back to New England and live!"

"_We_ can get to New England and live." I blinked and Arthur must have seen the surprise on my face because he smiled widely and turned to face me fully. "You didn't think we'd just call it quits on you guys and bail, right? You're stuck with us now and our home is big enough for all of you to join us. Maybe not the new people but certainly Matthew, Francis and you. If you want."

"I'd like that… I'd really like that," I grinned. I frowned after a moment's thought. "What about our parents though… Shouldn't we look for them?"

Seeming to think about it for a moment, Arthur sighed and shook his head. He looked sad. "I want to… But we have no clear path where to look…"

"My dad… and Uncle Louis…" I could feel myself tearing up and didn't want to cry in front of him, but before I could stop myself Arthur seemed to know what was happening. He stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around me tightly. I pressed my face into his chest and shook a little as he ran his fingers through my hair soothingly.

"I want my mum and dad back too…" he murmured. My tears were slipping. "I do… But there's nothing we can do… You've been the strongest of all of us these past few days… you're allowed to let yourself feel vulnerable every now and then…"

"I can't…" I whispered.

"We're alone up here," Arthur said. "Everyone else has gone outside… I won't tell." I shook my head so he sighed softly. "Amelia… I've watched you be there for everyone recently. You're the strongest, brightest and basically the most valuable member of this rough little team we have… You'll burn yourself out though if you don't allow yourself moments like this… I'm right here, okay? You don't have to put up a front with me."

I looked up at him for a moment and caught his eye. Those bright emerald green eyes locked with mine and in the moment that passed I knew he was right. I let out a choked sob and pressed my face back into his chest, clinging to him tightly as I followed his advice and let the stress and strain finally break free. Arthur kept his arms tightly around me and let me cry and I felt comforted by that fact. He swayed from side to side gently with me, allowing me to calm down in my own time. What an odd sight we must have been: two teenagers who, until recently, had no idea of the existence of one another, hugging in the bedroom of a presumably deceased girl from a time long since passed. I eventually calmed myself down but didn't move away from Arthur. He didn't seem to mind though. We glanced out of the window as we heard laughter and I smiled as I caught sight of Matthew and Maria running around on the grass outside. Everything felt normal…

"Are you okay now?"

"Mmm hmm," I hummed. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good now. Thank you, Arthur."

"It's our little secret," he grinned, winking at me. I blushed a little and chuckled. "I'm going to go check on Sophie. That Marcello kid's been hanging around her and giving her looks I don't like…"

"He has a crush on her," I grinned. Arthur scowled. "You're a good brother, Arthur. I know she loves you."

"Well," Arthur chuckled, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "I love her too…"

I watched as he climbed back down from the attic and left me alone. I felt a lot lighter than I had a few hours ago – I didn't know whether it was Arthur, our situation brightening or the laughter I could hear all around me but things just seemed better. I looked out the window again and smiled softly as I caught sight of Matthew putting his arm around Maria's shoulders. To my surprise, she looked softer than when we were imprisoned. She looked… well… feminine, I guess. Bright and hopeful. Matthew was giving her a look I never thought I'd see him give. Taking a seat by the desk, I rummaged through the drawer beside me and pulled out a blank notebook. Getting one of the pens I'd found, I decided to follow in the footsteps of the long-gone teenager. I began to write about what had happened so far and prepared to add more for whatever might come our way. It wasn't much but knowing I could contribute one little part to our own personal history was enough to brighten my spirit even more.

* * *

><p><strong>Ehhhhhh, an update!<strong>

**This was supposed to be a Halloween story but it's gone beyond that point now, huh?**

**Oh well.**


End file.
